Better the Daemon You Know Part 1
by Extartius
Summary: ‘MEN OF ORRAX, TO ME!’ Corgan screamed, charging out directly into the guns of the enemy. Explosions went off around them and the cones of ripping death homed in on the stream of fresh meat for the grinder. The tang of blood was thick on the air.
1. Iceman

_Please note that I have now started to re-write this story and it can be found through my profile. I've kept the old version on here for those of you that like to revisit and for general posterity._

_Please note that this story is set in the Warhammer 40K universe which is the intellectual property of Games Workshop Ltd."_

* * *

Memories tumbled around in his head. He remembered the cold. It was impossible not to remember the cold of the Orrax ice mines. He remembered the hatred that kept him warm at night. They had tried to take him down several times, but without their leader they were like a sump-rat without a head. They weren't so formidable, by then, as the reputations they had built around themselves back in the day. He'd been able to stave them off one at a time. But even this knowledge hadn't taken the edge off of his fear. It had stayed keen even as he tasted sweet victory time and again. 

He remembered Orrax like he was still there, but for the life of him he couldn't remember what he'd been so afraid of.

The wind howled mournfully through the girders, struts and braces of the gargantuan scaffold that supported the berg-side. At the ice wall, men with vibro-cutters worked away at the frost-rimed surface, hacking out great chunks and loading them onto the clanking conveyors belts that lurched off into the factorum in the sheltered hollow below the berg.

The noise was phenomenal, a screaming that rivalled even the gale-force wind for pitch and volume. The wall-workers, well wrapped up against the sub-zero temperatures in thermo-lined gear, were also equipped with glare goggle, re-breathers and filter plugs to protect their ears. There was little bare skin on show, such a blatant disregard for heat discipline in these conditions would see a man suffering from hypothermia before the day was out, or missing a few blackened fingers - and that could be just as fatal.

Inside the factorum, hundreds more frost-bitten slaves were lifting the blocks from the belts with thermo-lined gloves, dumping them irreverently into the metal bins on their crazed, squealing wheel-treads. Yet more thick-wrapped bodies waited to push the burdened bins up the ramp, two bodies to a dumpster. The workers here were the lucky ones, this was considered light duty in the ice mines, work that women and the more elderly colonists could do, as well as those too feeble to work the berg. The steam from a thousand or more sweating bodies made for an almost comfortable, though humid temperature and many were able to strip down to vests or at least their under-lining. The gloves stayed on, however, else the lifters would leave the skin of their moist palms on any block they touched.

The bins were pushed by main force up a shallow ramp into the bellow of a moon-bound flyer, a sky-tub that had been designed to withstand the high-velocity winds of Orrax while still bearing a heavy payload. They weren't graceful, but they were reliable and on Orrax, reliability was a survival trait.

Inside a Munitorium junior wielded his quota-slate with firm authority, backed up by the team of white-armoured guards with their large-bore shotguns. These faceless men were constantly on guard. Invisible eyes, ever watchful for the least step out of place. Even those selected for interior duties, diminutive and feeble though they might seem, often proved dangerous if caution was not stringently exercised. The stronger colonists, those at the wall, had learned early on to manipulate the weaker ones, often subjecting them to enough mental torture to convince them that it was a really good idea to mob the guards and try and acquire their weapons. Unfortunately, due to the colonists' general propensity towards the shadier aspects of human existence, these endeavours had always ended in tragedy for the colonists themselves, and as in any harsh environment, it was the weak that suffered hardest.

With the bins secured in the hold, the pushers retreated to acquire a fresh, empty vessel and wheel it into place at one of the hundreds of belts. It was a monotonous, grinding existence, but it exhausted them enough to cow them. And it was true that many of them did need to be cowed. Why else would they have ended up in a Penal Colony?

Corgan was considered one of the stronger colonists at Installation 537, and so he worked at the wall. He was grateful for this, because it meant he was unrecognisable in his thermo-gear to all but the most observant. And even they should be too weary to take any notice of the way he wielded his ice-cutter.

Should.

Corgan's gratitude for the seeming-anonymity granted him by his gear was, as it had been twice before, misplaced.

They'd learned to identify him. But at least they hadn't yet learned to disguise their clumsy sneaking approach to his position at the wall. Usually the workers didn't move very far, preferring to work at their allocation of the berg with a focus born of exhaustion. So when he noticed two of his fellow workers sidling steadily towards him it was a fair assumption that they weren't as focused as they should have been.

The supervisors were a bunch of slack-arsed idlers, else they'd have put these men back to work. But then, this wouldn't be the first time they'd been paid off. Colonists didn't have much that they could call their own, but on a world where women were as difficult to come by as a warm spot to sleep, arrangements could still be made. It had worked that way in every y-chromo penitentiary since the idea was invented.

Corgan didn't have much time for that sort of thing, he preferred to take what he wanted. He also preferred to strike pre-emptively. But he waited until they were closing in on him before he made his move.

Even while watching them he'd been carefully sculpting a chunk of ice so that as soon as they came within a few feet of him he was able to strike it with just the right amount of force and in precisely the right spot to shatter the block to a thousand slippery fragments that showered onto the high walkway of his gantry, seven scaffold-stories up.

'Come and get me, you bastards!' he cried, though it was unlikely they could hear him even as they shed their flimsy pretence and charged at him headlong.

One of them slipped on the fragments and over shot as Corgan duck into the hollow he'd created in the berg-side. He slid and fell, cracking his coccids on the grille-work of the walkway. The second managed a steady footing and brought his wicked vibro-saw to bear, Corgan imagined he was snarling, but the sound was lost to the wind.

Besides, what do I care? Was his only thought as his rammed his saw through the man's belly, narrowly avoiding the other man's thrust which missed Corgan's right ear by mere centimetres. Blood seeped from the man's body-suit, it would have gushed but the man had slumped forward, effectively closing the terrible wound. In spasm, the man grabbed Corgan's weapon and staggered back, stepping right off the gantry and falling. The second man was regaining his feet but it was too late, Corgan stepped up behind him and shoved him hard. He teetered for a long moment, arms spinning like wind turbines before he fell out and away, to land on the hard-packed ice seven stories down with his friend.

Corgan turned back to the wall, picking up his attacker's abandoned tool and went back to work.

Just another day, he thought to himself.

Then the yellow hazard light started flashing to tell them all to down-sticks and muster up in the yard below. The wardens would know it was his saw when they pulled it out on the guy and checked the serial number against that morning's equipment manifest.

They might rough him up a bit. They might even put him in the tank for a day or two but they knew that'd be doing him a favour more than anything else – a few days sleep would be bliss. In the end they'd just put him back into circulation and hope that the Catachan mob would do their work a little better. For the wardens, the skivvies of the Adeptus Arbites here on Orrax, there was no other legitimate way of getting rid of the man that had put more of their workforce in hospital than any other. And if they tried the shadier route, well, he'd take more than one of them out with him before the end, that he swore.


	2. The Devil's Handshake

'Why are you in here again, boy? I can't imagine…'

The head Warden had grown a cynical edge in his years since coming to Orrax, and it seemed to have grown the keener upon his first meeting with Corgan. Or, more accurately, upon reading the man's file nearly two years ago. He'd seen it straight away, of course, how could he miss it when it was so near the top of the page? Most of the colonists were Necromundan, their birth place usually read Down-Hive Primus or the name of some Forge-Collective or another. They had a large intake from Cardinal Voldt, too, and Septimus Oceana. But he'd never before seen one that read 'Orrax' until Corgan's internment.

He remembered the strange squalling echoing through the broad, cold corridors one dull evening. The intendant had told him that a woman from one of the factorums had been found to be pregnant. There weren't many women interned on Orrax, so the standard medical checks hadn't included checking for pregnancy. That protocol had been added since.

He remembered sending the babe back to Necromunda, after having made a generous donation to the Scholam Progenium there, not to mention calling in a few favours along the way to get the babe raised a true Imperial citizen. He'd wanted to give the babe a chance to escape the fate that his selfish mother had laid in store for him. He had sworn that if the babe survived the birth then it was a sign that the Emperor had some purpose in mind for him. It had warmed his faith, which had waned since his assignment to this forsaken place. And it had begun the slow, depressing decline once more, after he had realised that the child he had sacrificed so much for had wasted everything, only to end up back here.

'What do you expect? You want me to let them kill me?'

'No, but I do expect you to report candidly to my officers, without any of that spitting you seem so fond of.'

'You're officers, eh? Bunch of fragging lack-wits, too busy warming their rocks to give a frag about one obnoxious ice-waller.'

'You encourage such behaviour with your blatant disregard for human life. Killing solves nothing…'

'Solves them not coming to try for me again, doesn't it?'

'But not their friends.'

'Do you see me going after them?'

'I would prefer not to have to see you at all,'

'So maybe I _should_ fix 'em, would that earn me a death penalty?'

'I have a better idea.'

'Not interested.'

'You might be. You know about the draft? There'll be another one in three weeks time.'

'Fragging Guard! Me!' Corgan laughed uproariously, the idea was as absurd to him as the notion of getting along nicely with the men that were trying to kill him.

'It offers opportunities that you might be able to make the best of. Admittedly, the survival rate is not good, but you seem you have a talent for survival. That's if you can grow some notion of obedience. I have little doubt that you're more likely to be executed by the commissariat than slain by an enemy of the Imperium.'

That made Corgan laugh even more.

'Da, you have a sense of humour after all, who would have thought it.'

Despite himself the Warden smiled. The boy had taken to calling him Da when he'd found out about his heritage. Some of the colonists were adroit at hacking into the Arbites mainframe when it suited them and Corgan had managed to buy a peek at his file. He'd challenged the Warden during their second consultation, after he'd maimed three men in a berg-side brawl with nothing but his fists and an affinity for breaking bones.

He supposed it wasn't so far from the truth. Corgan had learned that his blood father had been an insurgent in the Lipasian Risings on Krai Nine. Corgan's mother, sentenced to Penal Internment for harbouring him, had been left behind to bear his unborn child on the unforgiving Orrax moon. The Warden was the closest thing to a father Corgan had ever had.

'Do this one thing for me, Corgan. If you don't, you'll be the death of us both.'

'Who knows, Da, maybe I will. I've never been a man to turn down a potentially profitable opportunity.'

There was a rigorous mental and physical exam to be undergone before being deemed suitable for enrolment. The Schargen ice-shelf, a sheltered spot near enough to installation 537 to be convenient, but far enough away to ensure security, played host to the myriad testing modules of the Scholam Medicae.

The volunteers were given a chit that told them when to report. Adherence was strict, the timescales were demanding. Even as he arrived he realised that they were like any medical professional in the galaxy, they habitually over-booked on the assumption that fifty percent of the volunteers wouldn't turn up at all. Nothing changed.

So it was that Corgan was waiting an hour and a half before being ushered into the first module. It was a tense wait, he felt exposed and edgy, but he tried not to let it show.

The medical orderly introduced himself as Orrics.

'I'll be walking the production line with you, every step of the way. The first few tests are arbitrary medical screening, any sign of infection will either be treated or render you void as far as enrolment is concerned. After that most of the tests will be to ensure you are fit to the task. Are you ready?'

Corgan nodded. The one-on-one approach was new to him. He was used to being treated like dung and it was odd to find that this Orrics seemed completely indifferent. He felt like a bug under a microscope. That sensation was about to be magnified ten times over.

First he was ordered to strip to his skin and had to watch them incinerate the jump-suit that had clothed him since his arrival on this forsaken rock. Then they jabbed him with a needle to take a blood sample and told him to urinate and defecate into a couple of sample jars. They took sputum, ear-wax, and a nasal scrape, and what was worse, they didn't even crack a smile when he offered them a lump of fluff from his naval.

'Step into the circle, please,' said Orrics, indicating a raised circular platform. One of the other orderlies activated the machine and a cylinder of blue energy enveloped him.

'Just a routine body-scan, remain calm, please. It will be brief.'

'Nothing on the scope,' said the operator. 'He's as clean as can be expected…'

'What's that supposed to mean?' asked Corgan, his voice mild, but with a promise of pain behind it. The operator paled but Orrics just scowled.

'Again I urge you to remain calm, you won't be allowed to enrol if you damage a member of the medicae staff.'

Corgan let it drop, favouring the operator with a smirk that only seemed to reinforce that hidden promise.

'Step down, please. We need to take your other measurements.'

Corgan endured a humiliating ten further minutes of being poked and prodded, weighed and measured before Orrics ushered him to a chair and took up a pair of clippers.

'You don't appear to be carrying any lice, surprising as that may be, but regulations are regulations. Your hair must be removed.'

'All of it?' asked Corgan.

'Well, we don't need to shave your chest, but I may need to venture elsewhere.'

The humiliation, it seemed, was about to get worse.

Finally Orrics tossed him a fresh jump-suit. Thankfully, due to the incinerator burning in a corner of the module the air was quite warm, he doubted the other modules were as comfortable. But his main reason for being thankful was that he knew exactly how he would have reacted to seeing someone so shaved. He would have laughed his socks off. He didn't want anyone doing that at his expense.

Orrics conducted him through the back door of the module into a plastek tunnel unit and into the next prefab.

'We need to get you tagged on our cogitator systems, here we will take finger prints and retinal scans. Your genetic code will be rendered from the samples you have already given. If you are selected this will be bound to your unique identity number. This number will be tattooed onto the back of your neck and your forearm should you be selected, it will also be programmed onto a micro-chip that will be surgically implanted in your skull. We always inform volunteers of this procedure on the premise that you might wish to change your mind. Do you?'

That was a tough one. He'd be branded for life, not to mention letting someone cut into him. He wanted this, but the price tag was steep.

'I'll take it,' it was like stepping off a log, but knowing that there could be carnivorous fish below and he wouldn't know for sure until they got hungry.

'Then we shall proceed.'

The third module tested his physical fitness. It was a simple treadmill hooked up to a burbling cogitator that spat out a ream of paper with a jagged line of ink scrawled along it. No problems there, the ice-face kept him trim the atmospheric conditions on Orrax had a way of testing and stretching your limitations. Orrics led him on to the next test.

They went on for hours. Among other things they tested his intelligence, his reasoning, logic and deductive abilities, innumeracy, literacy and other such ephemeral qualities. He came through those more puzzled than bemused. None of it seemed to have much of a place in the line of work he'd volunteered for, but as a child he'd been educated at the Warden's expense so he felt fairly confident that he'd done enough.

He enjoyed the reflex examination the most. He knew that this was where his true ability lay, in his unnatural speed and agility.

'The machine has a number pressure sensitive switches with a light embedded in the centre. You must hit the pads that light up as and when they do so. They will change locations and speed up in order to fully test your reflex dexterity. The test begins when you step onto the platform and ends when you miss five consecutive lights.'

He stepped onto the platform and started to hit the lights as they came on, bouncing on the balls of his feet to maintain his balance while shifting very quickly and sometimes into damning angles. But before long the world around him faded into the background and all he knew were those little red lights.

Orrics called the test to a halt after what seemed an age.

'We're done here,' he said.

'How did I do?' Corgan hadn't really tried much to develop a dialogue thus far, Orrics was a cold fish and well suited to life on Orrax in Corgan's opinion, but he really wanted to know.

'The sequence programmed into this machine is seven minutes long,' said the orderly, 'most people fall behind after three minutes. You managed to complete the entire sequence and you only missed three lights, none of them consecutive. I'd say you have nothing to worry about, here.'

Corgan let the satisfaction flood through him. He'd always known he was quick, but to have it proven was immensely enjoyable. He felt like a kid again.

On to the next module.

'Before we enter the next module there is some advice I would like to offer. I wouldn't ordinarily but I have to admit to having a good feeling about you.'

He certainly could have fooled Corgan, had in fact until this admission.

'You got a soft spot for me, Doc, and here I thought all that shaving was for regulations' sake!'

Orrics favoured him with a cool gaze.

'That is precisely why I'm offering this first piece of advice; you have a smart mouth. I would advise you to keep your spontaneity under wraps in there. You're about to meet the Commissar himself and you could get yourself in serious trouble.'

'Don't worry, Orrics, I can exercise some self control.'

'I'd also advise you not to salute, apparently these soldier-boys don't take well to non-military personnel bandying salutes about like they own the rights. So whatever you do don't do that.'

'Any more nuggets doc? I have an appointment to keep.'

'Let me see, don't speak unless spoken to, keep your hands to yourself… I think that's about it.'

'Then shall we get on? It's getting chilly out here.'

Orrics knocked on the door of the prefab and it opened smartly. A cadet-commissar looked Corgan up and down before ushering him inside. He took Orrics' advice to heart, not that he meant to make it a habit, of course, but he wasn't about to mess up his one good chance of getting off this rock!

'Subject is Corgan, Escabar, incarcerated for discharging firearms on a public thoroughfare, possession of unlicensed firearms, possession and suspected trafficking of banned substances, fracas and physical and actual bodily harm upon person or persons undisclosed. An addendum to the list of charges mentions that he resisted arrest, failed to give a full and proper testimony and withheld vital evidence. These charges were not included in his sentencing as a concession for his co-operation in naming and acquiring seven known deserters from the Emperor's gorious Imperial Guard.'

The cadet read from a data-slate, addressing the austere-looking man behind a broad and uncluttered desk. If this was the famous Commissar-General Draven, then he wasn't conceited about the fact. He wore no rank insignia, no medals, and he wasn't even sporting the ubiquitous peaked cap. He was wearing a leather storm-coat, but it seemed that this was his one concession to the stereotype. Corgan only wished the cadet had followed his example. The kid (who was probably no younger than Corgan himself) was absolutely swamped in gold frogging and looked like he was being slowly digested by his hat and coat.

Warden Griffenbold stood behind the Commissar-General, Corgan avoided looking at him.

'Why do you want to sign up, Corgan?'

His smooth tones were unnervingly mild.

'Do I have your leave to be candid?'

Draven nodded.

'I'm bored shitless on this Emperor-forsaken ball of ice!'

Draven laughed, his head rocking back on his shoulders. Corgan cracked a sly grin in return. This guy seemed okay.

'You're a breath of fresh air, Corgan. I've had to endure endless hours of devotional clap-trap today, you're the first man that's even tried to be candid with me. Ordinarily I'd take you on that alone, honesty is a useful trait, but your criminal record suggests to me that although you don't necessarily lie, you don't always surrender the facts. How can I rely upon you in the field of battle if you will not avail me of the salient details. Can you answer me that?'

'If I thought you were going to shaft me that might happen, but I'm not stupid. Why would I endanger you at one turn of the road when at the next it might be your turn to pull me out of the fire?'

'A good answer, not entirely satisfactory, but then I've come to expect that over the years. Once again, your honesty is refreshing.' He turned to the cadet. 'What are his scores like?'

The cadet grimaced, a look of distaste on his aristocratic features.

'His scores are well above average, Commissar-General. The Medicae staff gave him an epsilon-magenta rating.'

'Would you concur, orderly?' Draven addressed Orrics.

'I would, sir. He has potential.'

High praise from the ice-lord.

Draven stood, proffered his gloved hand across the desk. Corgan took it in a firm grip.

'Welcome to the Imperial Guard, Escabar Corgan, Imperator conservo nosta animus.' He smiled broadly, as if that were the funniest joke he had ever heard. Corgan had been schooled in High Gothic as a child, he knew the literal meaning and he saw the pun too. A grim joke, but a pertinent one.

He had his ticket out of there.


	3. Welcome to Hell

**575.M41 – Pelloris Ridge Battlezone, Fered Roathi**

Pelloris Ridge was the only way into the Five Rivers delta. Or so the tacticians believed. To the North, craggy mountains, the source of the delta's bounteous rivers. Impassable. To the South and West, vast marshes, a death-trap to all but the lightest and canniest of Imperial outfits. That left the ridge for us grunts.

It was steep in places but passable in others and these areas were heavily fortified. The armoured phalanx of the Orrax Penitent was to be the hammer that smashed the heretics asunder. I'd never seen carnage like that before. I've seen it aplenty since...

Extract from the diaries of Major N. Grampian, XO, VIIth Orrax Penitent.

xxx

**0900 hrs, Day 56 – Camp Davis, Pelloris Ridge**

The roar of the landers and the winds of their passing dominated the wasteland that was Camp Davis, headquarters of the Orrax Fifth. It was little more than an unregimented sprawl of crude, tarpaulin tents that rippled in the down-thrust, with a bastion of hastily erected prefabs at the very centre. A broad, arterial concourse joined the marshalling yard to the landing fields, thick with the traffic of war. The human cargo had been dropped in the first deposit, though it seemed that more bodies arrived with every lander.

The wind was a devil, made visible by its payload of dust and grit that clogged everything in its wake and caused endless skin-irritation. Corgan only counted himself lucky that his regiment had been assigned to this highland region, rather than the muddy wetlands to the south.

He tossed a pilfered ration-pack to Shopal, who was hunkered down in the opening of the tent they shared. He had a youthful, mischievous cast to his features that reminded Corgan keenly of himself back in the old days. He'd once been as irrepressible as Shopal was now.

'Courtesy of the Munitorium,' he said. It wasn't real food, but it was better than the nutritious slime they served in the mess tent.

'When do you think the battle will start?' asked Shopal.

'Tomorrow, I reckon, from the way they're shifting the gear. They're lining up the coffins as we speak.' He nodded in the direction of the marshalling yard, invisible at this distance behind a curtain of dust. Rank upon rank of the specially modified Chimera troop transports were lined up there, ready for the assault on Pelloris Ridge.

'I managed to sneak a look at one. They're not exactly the height of luxury.'

'I'd sooner go on foot.'

'I hear you. Can't wait to get up there but it won't be a picnic. I heard tell there's traitor Astartes up there.'

'Who from?'

'Got chatting to one of them freedom fighters that managed to get out of the delta. He told me the brass are forming those boys up into a special brigade. Got 'em snuggled up all cosy in some digs five miles back from the front, but this guy volunteered to lead our boys in. Says he knows the ground.'

'That's something, I suppose, but if we come up against Astartes we may as well shoot ourselves…'

'Bring 'em on, I say.'

Shopal grinned. He didn't stay down long.

'What you lurking at?' Their Decurion, Torvik, aimed a fist at the back of Corgan's head as he strode by. Corgan was too quick, however, stepping neatly out of the way.

'Back in your hole, rat-features! ' he bellowed, striding on without a backward glance.

'What lucky souls we are to have such a guardian,' Shopal remarked.

Corgan hawked and spat.

xxx

**0830 hours, Day 57 – Pelloris Ridge**

The tank surrounded them with noise and vibration, jarring them from side to side in the belly of the armoured beast. Each man was shackled to his seat inside a steel framework that locked in place over shoulders and chest. It was supposed to release automatically in the event of a catastrophic hit, otherwise they were relying on Torvik to unbind them when they reach the debarkation point. The seats were supposed to pop open at the same time, giving them access to some ammunition for the short-pattern lasguns secured to the roof of the tank, which were otherwise useless.

Frocar could hear the carpet-shelling even over the engine-rattle. The sound made the heavy feeling in his gut all the weightier. Looking around at his cell mates didn't make him feel any better.

He was a scrivener by trade, he'd never even thought about fighting until he'd landed himself on Orrax. What had he been thinking?

But these others looked the part. Even the one called Shopal had a hard edge, despite his foolish smirk. Torvik was the scariest by far and he was the only passenger that wasn't a criminal. The only one he knew was Ardin, his bunk-mate since they'd shipped out of Orrax. He was the strong, silent type, he'd watched over Frocar without asking for a return on his investment. Men like him had been rare on Orrax. Frocar counted himself lucky that they hadn't been separated, but he felt guilty too. Ardin shouldn't feel he had to look out for him.

Fear was knotting his guts. He struggled with the urge to vomit. More than ever he regretted his crimes, even though he'd only ever done what he was told.

'Three hundred metres,' crackled over the speaker from the driver's compartment.

Three hundred metres to death.

Then again, perhaps not. They all heard the whistle of the shell that exploded right next to the rear track section in their starboard side, imploding half the hull section, eviscerating Jarny and Tolpo and two other whose names Frocar didn't know.

The world lurched.

The pressure-shock must have knocked him cold for a few seconds because he woke, blurry and confused, to the sound of frantic yelling. He also had the strange sensation of being upside down, held in place by his harness.

So much for the automatic release.

Ardin's harness had been smashed. He probably had a few broken ribs but at least one of them was free. Corgan was yelling at him to find the release but Ardin was obviously as dazed as Frocar felt and having trouble getting his bearings in the flipped-out carcass. He managed it nevertheless, proving himself as stolid as the impression he gave.

Frocar dropped on his head and tumbled into a tangled heap with Corgan who jostled him away none-too-gently. He shook himself to clear his head and curled into a corner.

'Throne! We're on fire, we've got to get out of here!' yelled Shopal, his voice sounding curiously distant through the ringing in Frocar's ears. Corgan joined him at the hatch in a vain attempt to throw it open. Frocar got to his feet and started unshipping the lasguns which were now on the floor. Ammo clips were scattered everywhere.

He didn't want to think about being trapped in here as the fire tore through the compartment. The smoke was bad enough. With any luck he'd suffocate before the flames reached him. Some part of his brain had started jibbering unintelligibly at the mention of fire. He was only surprised that he had managed to snap out of his foetal retreat.

'The hole!' Shopal screamed, 'We can squeeze through that gap!' he gestured frantically as a great rent in the hull, smearing with the remains of the unfortunate man whose seat it had been only moments ago.

'Get moving,' Corgan yelled back, slapping the younger man on the back.

'What about Erriks and Torvik?' Ardin wheezed, cradling his left side.

Erriks was now slumped on the floor, gasping, his features sallow and drained. Dark, arterial blood was soaking through his breeches from a shrapnel wound in his groin. Torvik seemed untouched, but out cold as far as Frocar could tell.

Corgan stepped up and put a las-round through Erriks' skull.

'He needs… needed… a medic and I don't see any in here. Torvik can rot, for all I care. Now gather up whatever you can carry and get out of here before we all fry!'

For all his bluster, Frocar noted that Corgan ushered them all out ahead of him, shoving a string of clips at each of them. Whether this was out of a sense of self preservation or of selflessness was not clear. Frocar headed for the hole.

xxx

Corgan grabbed up Torvik's combat shotgun from the rack and the ammo-belt that went with it. It'd come in useful when they reached the trenches but the lasgun was better at long range. He grabbed one of those too. The workmanship was shoddier than he'd seen in the past, but it would have to do.

Shouldering both and draping a number of ammo-belts about him he headed for the rent in the hull, weighing the others up as he went.

Ardin seemed solid enough, though his ribs would give him some grief. And he looked like he was suffering from shell-shock. Shopal actually looked like he was enjoying himself now that he was out of the tank. He was busy snapping off shots up the slope despite the slim chances he had of actually hitting anything. Frocar was shaking like a leaf, wide-eyed and panicked. He held his lasgun loosely, but at least he was holding on to it. He'd be dead before the day was out, that much Corgan was certain of. The only question was whether he should do it now before he got them all killed.

He decided to think about it.

xxx

'What do we do now?' Frocar cried, alarmed by the panic in his voice.

Corgan fixed him with the scariest look he'd ever seen.

'What do you want to do?' he said, almost too quietly to be heard over the din. 'Go back if you want, see how long you last when the commissars get hold of you.'

'I'm with you, Corgs,' Shopal grinned, seeming completely unfazed by the shell-hit. Ardin nodded as well, though his facial muscles had a tightness to them that spoke of his pain. Frocar fought for calm.

'I'm going up the hill, like it says in the primer. I'm going to get some payback for Erriks and the others.' Corgan looked determined enough for all of them. Frocar nodded. However scary this Corgan might be, the commissars would shoot him on sight if he retreated downhill. He had no choice but to follow.

'Come on then,' said Corgan. 'The shelling should make it easier for us 'cause it's creating cover. We can use that to close with the trenches. Keep your heads down.'

They moved. Shopal, keen as he was, took point. He picked out their circuitous route up the slope, dodging from wreck to shell-hole. None of them bothered to use their weapons. Visibility was severely hampered by the smoke shrouding the battlefield. Instead they fixed their bayonets and kept their eyes peeled for the enemy.

They picked up other survivors along the way as men as lost and leaderless as themselves materialised out of the smog. A guy named Gordis and his buddy Orpio. Frocar didn't recognise either of them even though they claimed to be from the Third Cohort.

Fifty metres up the hill they came across a huddle of furtive penitents cowering behind a burnt-out wreck. A white-armoured warden was curled in the middle of the group, shivering and whimpering.

'What's going on?' Corgan asked, shoving his way into the circle.

'It's the Warden, he won't get up,' replied an unkempt, bearded man with strikingly blue eyes.

Corgan looked down at the prone figure with disdain.

'What's the matter with him?' asked Frocar, the note of panic in his voice rising a notch.

'He's lost it,' Corgan replied, calm as a spring morning on the garden worlds of Ultramar. 'He's no good to anyone like this.'

He shot the warden through his left eye, spraying the wreck with the back of the man's head and most of his brain. The collective gasp that went up around him was barely audible. The tumult of war seemed to fade into the distance in the moments that followed.

Frocar couldn't move. He was expecting the man's squad to turn on them at any moment. He was expecting the searing pain of a bayonet through his sternum.

It never came.

'What'd you do that for?' yelled the bearded man. 'You could've just left him for the black-tops…'

'You want some of what he got?' asked Corgan, his weapon hanging limp at his side, but all the menace in the universe held in his outwardly nonchalant stance.

'Well get in line! There'll be plenty of ways to die today,' he continued. 'Staying here and going back are the only sure ones. I suggest you all get off your arses and slog it up the hill while the black-tops are still smoking their inaugural cigars.'

They glowered and hefted their weapons as though intent on violence.

'What's your name?' Corgan asked the bearded man.

'Arines.'

Corgan leant down and stripped the Warden's shotgun from his webbing, thrusting it at Arines.

'Looks like you need a new section leader, interested?'

Arines eyes the shotgun like it was a viper rearing to bite. Frocar didn't like to think what would happen to any man caught toting a Warden's weapon, no matter how he'd acquired it.

Finally he grasped the weapon and slung the strap over his shoulder.

'So, you leading us up and over or what?' asked Arines.

'Why, you want the job?'

Arines didn't reply, but his glare was no longer as challenging as it had been.

'Come on then, we've just made up fifty metres in five minutes, can't be more than two-fifty to go. Hell, the battle might even be over and done with by the time we get there, but get there we must if we want to see the sunset..'

Shopal whooped and fired up into the air, ready to lead off again.

'Cut up the hill diagonally, use the cover that's available and get us as close as you can to the trench-line.'

'Sir, yes sir, Corgan sir!' he shouted and threw a mock salute before charging out towards a sunken, abandoned vehicle that had gotten bogged down in its advance. There were wrecks littered around it and it looked as though the enemy spotters had zoned in on the area as the tail-back got congested. Bodied were strewn everywhere, mostly other penitents, but with the occasional white-armoured Warden among them. They certainly didn't struggle for cover and the shelling seemed to have roved on up the hill as well, chasing the forward elements as they advanced. Only a few strays were coming down now, but there was still plenty of small arms fire zipping down the slope. Unlikely as it was that they could see anything, the enemy obviously weren't taking any chances on an infantry advance.

Shopal led them up the hill, bringing them into a cluster of corralled wrecks about twenty metres from the trench-line.

'This is it, boys.' Corgan had gathered around twenty bodies to him now.

'What's the plan?' asked Arines.

'The plan is there is no plan!' Corgan replied.

'No plan, that's good!' Shopal grinned.

'There's only one way to take a trench and we don't have the means. If you want a plan, how about you go right and we go left. That way we don't shoot each other in the arse. We charge in hard and fast and stick together. Once we're in the trench we'll make them pay.'

Arines looked dissatisfied.

'I like it as much as you but without grenades we're basically shafted. We have to get across the open ground as quick as we can to deny them the only advantage they have. Now, do you want to sit here and talk about it or are we going in!'

He was up and charging out of cover before Arines could raise a protest. Shopal was right beside him, Gordis and Orpio too. Ardin gave Frocar a shove and a silent, meaningful look before following. Frocar hung back, trembling with a fear born of hesitation.

Gunfire whipped out from the enemy positions, las and hard rounds that ripped into the men as they charged up across open ground. He looked back down the slope, with its new decor of twisted steel, armaplas and the butchered corpses of former penitents. The commissars were back there somewhere, which meant there was nothing else for it. He steeled his guts and followed.

xxx

Bullets and lasbolts zinged past Corgan on both sides but he continued on untouched, his eyes fixed on the barely visible lip of the trench. They were firing out of deeply recessed revetments, unwilling to offer a viable target to those advancing uphill.

Suddenly something heavier started chattering. Two of the men to Corgan's right fell in a twisted heap, bodies ruptured by heavy gunfire. He was almost there. Shopal cried out in rage as something clipped his shoulder but he kept his feet underneath him, firing wildly from the hip as though it would make a difference. One of Arines' men had overtaken them, screaming like a madman until his head exploded. Snipers behind the trenches, but they'd picked the wrong target.

Corgan dropped into the trench and laid about with his bayonet, swinging his lasgun by the skeleton stock until Shopal dropped down beside him. Time seemed to have slowed down and he could see the writhing features of the cultists, burned and sliced with the symbols of their dark worship. Their teeth were filed, their noses cleft, lips peeled and stapled back and eyes sewn open.

Little wonder they were crazed.

Silence fell after what seemed a lifetime of butchery. Finally Corgan looked about him to find that the only cultists he could see were of the dead variety. Of the twenty or so penitents he had brought together, seven were dead, a further two gravely wounded.

Shopal busied himself tearing strips from his sleeve to wad against the oozing wound in his shoulder. Ardin went over to help him bind it, wheezing heavily himself. Corgan told him to get his chest bound up tight. Gordis was one of the less fortunate men, having taken a wound in the gut. Orpio was busily trying to staunch the seepage of dark blood. He needed a medicae, which meant he was screwed.

Surprisingly, timid little Frocar seemed unscathed and was right there next to Corgan, looking for all he was worth like he intended to use the weapon he grasped.

'Are we secure down that end?' Corgan bellowed.

'As your mother's chastity belt, 'Arines replied, which brought tears of laughter to Corgan's eyes.

'Come on Frocar, let's go find something else to kill.'


	4. What it Takes

**0900 hours, Day 57 – Pelloris Ridge**

Frocar seemed to have found some hidden reserve of strength deep inside himself. He'd arrived in the trench without firing a shot and had no idea how he'd managed to avoid being cut down along the way. Corgan was looking at him, laughing at something Arines had said. He didn't seem quite so scary as before, but Frocar prodded himself to remember that he'd seen this man kill two others in cold blood. Erriks had perhaps been a mercy-killing, but that Warden…

More men dropped into the trench behind them. Somewhere, further back, that support weapon was still firing. All the new arrivals were stragglers and remnants, not a sign of a Warden among them. Arines shouldered through to join Corgan and Frocar at the traverse.

'What now?'

'You ask a lot of stupid questions, don't you Arines?' Corgan sniped.

'That's what I'm here for…'

'We have to find a sally trench leading back into the reserves. No point in leaving cover now we're in. Let's get some of these boys organised into a rearguard and we'll head off in one direction or the other. They can cover our backs and keep the hole open for any other stragglers.'

'Sounds good to me.'

'I'd like to find the main push but failing that we may as well keep going 'til we drop.'

'Cheerful!'

'I'm a happy-go-lucky guy, Arines, hadn't you noticed?'

'Sorry, I must have nodded off…'

'Get your lads together, we'll leave ten men here with orders to send up any late arrivals.'

'We'll need a watch-code, else we'll be getting shot in the arse!'

'Alright, how about the motto?'

'Bit long winded, don't you think?'

'Probably, and it's more likely to make me want to open fire on them than not. Something simpler then?'

'Search me…'

'How about Iceman?' Frocar piped up.

Corgan and Arines both looked at him as though he were something they'd stepped in.

'Not half bad,' Arines conceded.

'We'll go with that then. Get it sorted!'

'Sir!'

Frocar had begun to wonder how long it would be before someone other than Shopal referred to Corgan as though he were an officer. The man had acquired leadership as easily as other men acquired nick-names.

'We going this way, sir?' he asked, finding it was comfortable to follow in Arines' wake.

'May as well, that's where all the noise is coming from. Why, you want to take point with Shopal?' There was a challenge in Corgan's eyes that almost made Frocar quail.

He hesitated before replying. He hadn't made a very good showing of himself so far, he supposed he ought to start playing soldier sooner or later.

'Yeah, I think I do,' he said.

'Well, try and keep him under control, then.'

In truth, Shopal's shoulder wound seemed to have brought it home that this wasn't a game anymore. His exuberance was quelled somewhat. He advanced slowly, scanning the foreshortened horizon assiduously. They clung as close as they could to opposite walls through the next section of trench, taut and alert. It seemed to have been abandoned, but no doubt the enemy were just waiting for them to come within reach.

Sure enough, as they came close to the next traverse the cultists burst out on them. A flurry on gunfire stitched past them, chewing up the liquid mud in the trench bed and spraying dirt from the walls of the revetment. Both of them came out miraculously unscathed and replied with their own weapons on full-auto, cutting down the first clutch of hideously twisted heretics. A grenade tumbled over at them but Corgan scooped it up and tossed it back. Blood and bone sprayed back at them as it detonated in amongst the huddled enemy.

Those that regained their feet broke and ran, but they didn't get far as Corgan charged past and opened up with his shotgun, bringing them down. Lasfire lanced out from behind the next traverse, forcing them back.

'Let them think we've cut and run,' Corgan hissed, taking a palm-sized chunk of polished metal from his pocket. It had a split and a twist that allowed him to wedge it onto his lasgun's bayonet. He then positioned it so that he could see the distorted reflection of the trench up ahead.

Arines lined up behind him with the others. He looked grimly confident, another man upon whom the glove of leadership seemed a good fit. Frocar began to recognise the strange sensation that started in the tightness of his chest and ended in the tips of the erect hairs on the back of his arms and neck. It was the same feeling he'd experienced upon homecomings, when he'd been reunited with his brothers and sisters. Now here he was, finding himself thinking of these hard and brutal men in the same way.

He reflected upon what being here said about himself. He'd always been the timid, retiring type. Ideally suited to the career he'd chosen and unable to stick up for himself even when he knew he was being manipulated by his cunning supervisor. What would his sisters say to see him blasting away at these wretched creatures with as much conscience as a hardened veteran of the Imperial Guard?

Orrax had changed him. Irrevocably, he was certain.

'They're coming!' Corgan hissed. 'Wait for it…'

'Right,' said Arines. 'Frocar, Shopal, Orpio, when Corgan gives the word you three go low, I'll shoot over your heads with two of my lads. Don't spare your ammo, I've a feeling there'll be plenty to scavenge along the way.'

They nodded, grimly determined, braced for the word. Fresh beads of sweat broke out on Frocar's temples and his mind went curiously blank.

'Now!' Corgan shouted, right in Frocar's ear. The surprise almost caused him to fall over but he reacted quick enough to lean out and start pumping away at the trigger stud. The abominations were three quarters of the way up, advancing cautiously, but the channel was thick with them. It was a shooting gallery. The offal stench of slaughter wafted back over them as the torrents of lasfire seethed down the revetment.

They had little chance to return fire, Frocar didn't even have to duck before it was over.

'Shit!' Arines swore, crouching over the body of one of his men. Despite the pathetic response it seemed the enemy had scored after all.

'Come on,' Corgan growled, 'before they get any more men in the trench. We've got this one sewn up if we move now!'

He led the way, Frocar followed him up but Corgan was light on his feet and nimble despite the trench being choked up with corpses. Reaching the traverse Corgan didn't even hesitate before heading down the next trench. There were more enemies waiting but they were gibbering in fear and broken. Corgan's shotgun mauled them before they even registered he was there.

They took three more traverses in this way before taking out a couple of pillboxes that were keeping a bundle of their own men pinned down out on the slopes. Corgan called clear and waved them in. They were joined by no less than two Wardens, one of whom swiftly assumed command.

'Well done, who's in charge here? Where are your Wardens?'

'Dead, sir, hence their absence. We pressed on and managed to make a hole in the line about forty metres back,' Corgan replied. 'This part of the line is clear.'

'Good, we've been locked down tight but we think some of our forward elements may have overshot these defences and pressed on ahead, we've been trying to rejoin them.'

'Do you have any idea where we are?'

'Of course, there should be a sally trench right around here somewhere, it was going to be our way in. What unit were you with?'

'Third Century.'

'But that means you're way out of position. You were supposed to attack along marker 348.'

'With respect, we were never told that. We've been leaderless since our transports were crippled and we just did what it says in the primer. If we hadn't, you'd still be out there.'

The Warden sniffed, but his protests abated.

'What do we do now, sir?' asked Corgan, without a hint of subservience in his tone. Frocar felt that odd surge once more. Corgan was their leader now.

'Well, you may as well form your lads up behind us and follow us in. No point in sending you back since you've put the work in.'

'Yes sir.' Corgan turned away from the pompous lack-wit, waving Arines over. Shopal and Frocar sidled a little closer, eyeing the newcomers testily.

'They're going to lead us in, which means we get a breather if nothing else. Not that I think this half-wit has the bald luck and balls to get the job done.'

'I won't argue with that. There must be sixty of them and they couldn't even get into the trench. We had a third their numbers and lost seven lads while they sat and waited for us to do the dirty work.'

'Let's just sit back and watch them make up for it.'

'Sir, they're starting off,' Frocar spoke up, nodding towards the scratch brigade.

'Okay, just take it easy, boys, get your breath back and let them take the heat for a change.'

Progress slowed. The newcomers were just as unwilling to brave enemy fire within the trenches as they had been without, which led to hesitation and casualties. They bunched up too tight and tripped over their own toes. Corgan hung back, ensuring that his own unit maintained a safe distance from any trouble that might erupt.

Frocar found he had come to admire the man, despite seeing him dispatch two helpless men earlier in the day. Corgan was ten times the man of any Warden. Timid little Frocar found that he couldn't care about those white-armoured men as anything other than vermin. Big rats in white ceramite armour plating, but rats all the same.

For the first time since he'd landed on Orrax he found himself laughing inwardly. Even in his head there was a wild note to it. He was beginning to scare himself now…

The sally trench was, it transpired, a death-trap. It was fifty metres long and fifteen wide. Studded along each side of it were rockrete bunkers, each capable of housing up to two support weapons. At the far end it was guarded by three stories of bunker, with more support weapons ensconced within. The roadway was littered with yet more wrecks and strewn with bodies. A few stranded survivors hunkered down amidst the carnage, popping off shots at the bunkers. Wounded men screamed in pain or simply moaned, depending on the severity of their wounds and the time that had elapsed since receiving them. It seemed as though everything were coated in soot and gore. Columns of smoke billowed up from torn out metal carcasses and rivers of burning promethium laced the scene, rendering it a vision of hell.

The sally trenches were not the soft targets that tactical had assumed.

The Warden in charge threw his men into the attack, following the first couple of sections but hardly in the first rank. Most of his men were mown down, a very few of them managing to get into cover, himself included although not unscathed.

The rest of his unit hung back, ignoring his screams and those of the other Warden, who only succeeded in getting himself pushed out into a volley of heavy stubber rounds and torn to pieces.

Frocar saw Corgan's jaw clench in frustration.

'Fragging amateurs!' he spat. 'Come on, you bastards, get off your knees and advance!'

Arines joined in the cajoling, bringing the rear-guard up towards the exit hole. Frocar found himself strangely calm, but then he hadn't been feeling himself for some time now.

Corgan was bellowing something about slack-jawed invertebrates but Frocar wasn't listening to him. He was absorbed in the staccato rhythm of the enemy gunfire. It moved through him, through the dark, primordial regions of his brain and out the other side. Fear was within him and surrounded him, but it was no longer in control of him.

He looked askance at a young penitent that couldn't be much above sixteen. The boy was white with terror, vomit still flecked his chin and stained his breeches along with the blood and filth of the trenches.

'What's your name?'

'P… P… Perri.'

'Out for a stroll Perri?'

No reaction, except perhaps a hint of maniacal, baresark laughter welling up behind those boyish features.

'Quite a shit storm you've found here, mind if we cut in ahead of you?'

'You want to go out there?' somehow the boy found words, but not belief.

'Why not?'

'Because you'll die!'

'Got a better plan?'

The boy hesitated, shaking his head, numbed by the horror of it all.

'See you on the other side, Perri,' said Frocar, stripping his clip in favour of a fresh one.

He turned back to see Corgan dragging men to their feet and lining them up, threatening bloody murder with a pistol he had acquired from somewhere.

'Get them up, boys! No shirkers! Everyone fights, no one relents! Up, up, up!'

Frocar held out his hand and Perri gripped it. His hand was corpse-cold and bloodless.

'We all go together, on my signal!' Corgan bellowed, hefting his lasgun once more.

Frocar gripped his own weapon, glanced at Perri.

'Stick with me. Corgan will get us through this if anyone can.'

He nodded.

'MEN OF ORRAX, TO ME!' Corgan screamed, charging out as he had several times that day, directly into the guns of the enemy. Explosions went off around them and the cones of ripping death homed in on the stream of fresh meat for the grinder. Men tumbled in pieces or jetting blood, limbs flying off in different directions to their incumbent torsos. The air was thick with the tang of blood.

Frocar charged out into the chaos and turned up the trench. There was no time to think about dodging from side to side or even to dive for the scant cover that was available. He was far too occupied avoiding being tripped over by the men falling dead in front of him.

Something grazed his calf and he fell, howling with rage. It had come from behind him. His own side had shot at him. Struggling to his feet he charged on, losing sight of Perri, losing his grip on sanity. His vision hazed with red, though whether it was in his subconscious or whether the air really was hazed with blood-vapour he would never know.

He reached a dimple in the side wall, firing at full auto through the slit, slaying the support gunners within and moved on to the next one, amazed that the solid streams of bullets never touched him. He was joined by three other men, none of whom he recognised. They made rapid progress up the trench while others too numb to think charged up ahead of them, drawing the enemy's fire. Then one of the three went down, saving Frocar's life at the cost of his own, torn apart by point-blank stubber fire. The second dropped stone dead as a las-round went through his eye and exited through the back of his skull. The third tripped and fell, either because he'd caught one in the leg or simply out of clumsiness, Frocar never saw. He ran on.

The tower reared up, less than fifteen metres ahead of him now, spitting death. The massed advance had thinned and only a scattering of Corgan's charge had held the momentum, clearing out the side-bunkers and making up ground. Frocar could hear him over the din.

'Keep up the pressure! We have to get into that tower or we're all dead!'

By some miracle, Frocar was the first to reach the narrow door, cutting down a desperate counter-charge with his lasgun on full auto. He picked up a graze on his left hip, but he and four other men made the ground floor room to find it abandoned.

'Up the stairs,' Frocar shouted. The stubbers seemed to have fallen silent. They were waiting.

'Here,' cried the man behind him, sporting a mass of scar tissue across his brow. 'Let me!' He hefted a grenade he had scavenged from somewhere.

'Use it. We'll rush them!' Frocar replied.

The explosion brought stinking smoke down the stairwell as they charged up the last few steps and into the nest, gunning down the stunned cultists.

'Look at this!' cried scar-face, indicating a stash of rocket grenades at the back of the nest.

'Bring a tube, we've another floor to go.'

They sent a rocket up the stairwell but either it was a dud or it bounced straight out the firing slit. A second followed it and Frocar learned a valuable lesson about opening his mouth in preparation for the pressure-shock. With his ears still ringing he charged up into the final nest to find the rocket had done its work nicely.

He turned to scar-face.

'It's clear, go tell Corgan!'

Frocar turned back to see what he could scavenge. The cultist lying prone before him shot him three times before finally expiring. The first las-round went through Frocar's thigh, the second took away most of his pelvis, the third ruptured his left lung.

Frocar collapsed onto his back, stunned, coughing up blood. It felt like an eternity before he finally saw men standing over him. One was Corgan. There was a look of fierce pride on his face. So, that was alright then. Frocar felt he could die with a sense of vindication. Not because of the crimes that had put him here, but because he'd proved he was more than the clerk he had been in his previous life. He had exceeded his limitations.

The other silhouette was Perri.

'Told you I'd see you…' he managed to gurgle, though he doubted they could understand him.

Darkness enfolded him.


	5. In Deep

**1000 hours – Pelloris Ridge**

'What's your name, kid?' Corgan asked.

'Penitent Trooper Perri, sir.'

'Well done, Perri, you just landed yourself the job of being my skivvy. Go see if you can find that damn warden for me. If all you find is a corpse I'll be wanting any papers you can find on him.'

The kid scurried off.

'How's he doing?' Corgan addressed one of the field medics before him.

'I don't know, sir. He's busted up pretty good but I think we've got him stabilised. He might make it if we can get him to a proper medical installation.'

'Hang on in there, Frocar.' He was hanging on by a thread. It didn't look good, but Frocar had proved Corgan wrong once and he might just do it again. He turned back to the medic.

'Keep him alive long enough to get that medal he deserves and I'll make it worth your while. The man's a hero.'

Arines tugged on his sleeve.

'We've got tactical on the horn, they say they want to talk to someone in charge.'

'Do we know who that is?'

'Both warden's are confirmed dead, you're it!'

'Shit! Where'd you scrounge the vox-set, and more importantly why didn't you have the sense to drop it down the deepest hole you could find?'

'One of the new boys was carrying one. Said he was attached to come Centurion or other.'

'Too bad this Centurion didn't have the sense to keep his skin whole. I'd better talk to them.'

'It's over this way.'

Arines led him onto one of the side-bunkers where the vox-operator was tinkering with his set. He offered up the horn at a glance from Corgan.

'Tactical, this is Penitent Trooper Corgan. I'm nominally in charge here. Go ahead…'

'Troop-leader, tactical, we've triangulated your signal at marker 347, can you confirm?'

'Negative, Tactical, I have no idea where we are until someone gets me a map. I can only say that it sounds about right according to what I was told a few minutes ago.'

'We'll show you at 347, Trooper. Can you give me a situation report?'

'We've got about thirty able bodies and over a dozen wounded. We just about managed to secure one of the sally-trenches including side bunkers and watchtower. We were trying to catch up with the leading edge but we came up against heavy resistance still in place here.'

'Be advised, Trooper Corgan, as of now _you are_ the leading edge. Everything in front of you has fallen apart and you can expect to see friendlies retreating through your lines. We're trying to establish defensible beachheads against the counter-push and I have reinforcements en route to your location. They'll be with you within the hour. Can you hold until then?'

'We'll be waiting. Tell them not to drag their feet…'

'I've got your back, Trooper. Reinforcements will give the pass-code Ravenscall. Keep this channel clear and await further orders. The Emperor protects. Tactical out!'

Corgan handed the vox-horn back.

'Stick close to me, Trooper…'

'Wheln, sir.'

Arines sidled over.

'We've got more men coming in, Corgan, our rearguard among them. They've been forced to retreat back towards us along the front-line trenches but at least they've managed to collect up a few others in the process.'

'What about wounded?'

'Walking wounded only. It's grim.'

'Okay, form the fighters into fire teams and get them dug in. We've been ordered to hold here for reinforcement. Looks like the leading edge got pasted, meaning we're it!'

'Throne!'

'We can hold this position better than the cultists did and if we keep a low profile we might just escape the worst they can throw at us.'

'Got it.' Arines headed off to organise the newcomers.

'What a mess,' Corgan muttered to himself.

'Sir!'

'What is it, Perri?'

'I found Vogin, sir, this is all he had on him.'

'Good job, Trooper.' Corgan grabbed the wallet Perri held out to him. 'Stick close.'

xxx

**1130 hours – Pelloris Ridge**

The interior of the command Chimera was stuffy and stank of motor oil and male sweat. Draven hit the top-hatch release and shoved it open, hoisting himself up to get a look at the terrain ahead and in the vain hope of getting some fresh air in his lungs.

The slope was a smoking graveyard, furnished with burnt out wrecks and shattered tanks, littered with the corpses of his men. Many of the vehicles and even some of the bodies were still burning. A few dazed and hapless penitents were stumbling about. One man, oblivious to the world around him, went under the tracks of an oncoming tank with barely a cry.

'Glorious isn't it sir?'

Cadet Vaughn had pulled himself up to get a look, his sallow features livid with excitement.

'You have much to learn, Cadet. There's no need to keep reminding me of the fact by making stupid comments.'

Vaughn looked away, sullen.

Draven shook his head in exasperation. Vaughn was of an age with most of the boys lying dead and dismembered around them. Being born to privilege was his only advantage. Not for Vaughn the role of a lowly footslogger. And this would be his first taste of battle. His first foray into the chaos of battle.

Draven would judge him when it was over.

'The front-line trenches must be just ahead. More speed, driver!' he bellowed, banging on the outer hull with his gauntleted fist. 'Raise Corgan on the vox, tell him we're… Holy Throne of Terra!'

The Chimera had topped the rise and they were faced with a sudden, shocking vista. From horizon to horizon the world was aflame. Las-fire stitched the darkening sky beneath a pall of thick smoke. Runaway promethium fires dominated. Shells were still falling, pounding the lost front-line trenches in combination with a reckless counter-push, trying to drive out the tenacious remnants of the first Imperial wave.

'Pull over, we disembark here,' Draven bellowed, tugging his cap more firmly into place. He didn't see much point in risking the vehicles any more than was necessary.

The Seventh had been sitting in reserve while the Fifth and Sixth held forth the assault. The latter had quickly over-stretched itself and had been smashed all along this front, having singularly failed to consolidate their gains. The Sixth was advancing more cautiously away to the south, hampered by muddy conditions as much as anything else. This was the last stronghold of the Fifth, the one gain the enemy had, as yet, not managed to retake. Draven had the First Cohort with him, some six hundred and fifty men including the medical field-teams he'd sequestered from the Munitorium. The other nine Cohorts had been detailed to move in and secure the front-line trenches North and South, while Draven himself bolstered Corgan's position and pressed home into the reserve trenches. From here they might make heroes of the Fifth by staging a successful fight-back. Else they'd be consigned to the annals of shame.

Draven nodded meaningfully at his altern. The man switched his vox to loudspeaker mode, slaving the first Cohort's vox-speakers to his set.

'MEN OF ORRAX, DISMOUNT AND ADVANCE. IMPERATOR CONSERVO NOSTA ANIMUS!'

xxx

Corgan wiped the blood from his brow before it could run into his eyes.

'Stand fast you bastards! Not one step backwards or I'll kill you myself and spare them the trouble! Pour it on, damn you! Pour it on!'

He wondered briefly how Arines was doing across the way. Surely they couldn't stand up to much more of this. The heretics had over-spilt the perpendicular trenches and were advancing en masse. Fortunately Corgan had already set up a makeshift fire-step and set up every support weapon he could scavenge along it. The bastards were dying in droves but for every five that dropped another twenty were there to crawl over the bodies. What was more, they were forced to fight on three fronts. North and South the enemy had retaken the trenches they'd lost and were pressing hard. Fortunately their numbers were hampering them as much as anything else.

Nevertheless, it was terrifying.

In addition to the mass assault the enemy were homing in on them with their long-range bombardment, trying to winkle them out of their position. Corgan was feeling stubborn. Her was damned if he was going to give one inch without a good reason.

'Sir,' it was Wheln. 'There's a message coming in. It's pretty messed up by the shelling but I thinks it's the reinforcements coming in.'

Corgan grabbed Perri by the arm, dragging him closer so he'd be heard over the din.

'Get back and tell the rearguard to watch their fire. We've got friendlies coming in.' Perri made off and Corgan turned back to the shooting gallery.

'Keep it up, men. Relief is coming in and we don't want them claiming all the glory do we?'

A furious shout went up. These men had done their work. They were proud of their efforts. Corgan was proud of them. It was a strange feeling. He screamed a meaningless battle-cry and started pumping fire into the enemy, venting his impossible frustration.

Moments later a familiar but unexpected voice buzzed somewhere in his consciousness.

'Stand down, Centurion! We'll take over from here. You've earned your rest!'

Corgan didn't react at first. Somewhere in the sane part of his mind he may have questioned who the voice was talking to, but his blood was up and he cared only about killing his enemies.

'I said stand down, Centurion…' This was spoken directly into his ear. In his furore he almost rounded on the speaker with the butt of his rifle. Instead he lowered his weapon and turned to look at Commissar Draven with incredulity.

'Centurion…'

Draven sighed.

'Didn't anyone read the thrice-damned mandate? It explains how I have the autonomous right to hand out brevet rank as I see fit. And if prudent I have the power to make that rank permanent. Congratulations, Centurion Corgan, I knew you had potential when first I met you.'

He held out his rough-palmed hand and Corgan took it.

'I'm giving you a short respite. Get your wounded loaded up in the transport and allow your men to get their breath back. The glory is yours today, Centurion, no matter the outcome, but the day is not won by a long mile.

'Sir!' Corgan could say nothing more. The morning was all but gone and he could remember little of what had transpired in any detail. And yet he had acquired responsibility and authority at every bump in the road. It was a strange feeling and seemed completely out of character for him. He'd spent his life looking out for himself. He'd made a fortune in money dealing out peril in the lawless depths of Hive Primus and it had never given him this feeling of achievement, this sense of satisfaction.

Perri materialised at his side.

'Where's Arines?' asked Corgan.

'He's directing the newcomers, sir, you want me to fetch him?'

'No, you'll do. See if you can gather up a few of the lads to get the wounded shipped out. The Commissar's Chimeras are waiting to evacuate them.

'Got it sir!'

xxx

Forcar winced as the medics lifted him up and carried him out into the sally trench. The opiates in his blood hadn't been sufficient to dull the pain of his wounds completely, and he was still dizzy from his loss of blood. He fought for consciousness at every moment.

He saw Perri lurching about, waving his arms at the fresh-faced Munitorium medics. He was glad the kid had survived. He hoped Corgan would look after him.

Corgan was there too, walking to intercept Frocar's bearers. Perri handed him a chit of rough-pulped paper as he passed.

'You're heading back. The medicae will have you back on your feet in no time.'

'Are we winning, sir?'

'So far, Frocar, so far. It's barely midday yet, still a lot of dying to do. Listen, I want you to do me a favour. You're the only one I trust.' He looped a piece of string around Frocar's wrist and attached the chit to it. 'Everyone who's going back with you now is part of Third Century, under my command. Keep them together. I want you all with me once you're fit to return to duty. Don't let anyone take you off elsewhere. I'm putting you in charge so you can call yourself an Optio, it says as much on the chit so don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Got it?'

'Yes sir!'

'I'll be seeing you soon, Frocar, hopefully to pin a couple of medals on your chest. Take him away boys.'

Frocar slipped into unconsciousness before seeing the interior of the Chimera, but it was with a happy smile on his face despite his pain.

xxx

**1230 hours – Reserve Trenches, Pelloris Ridge**

The heretics, having exhausted their fervour, were falling back. It was still bloody murder rooting out isolated pockets of resistance trapped in blind alleys and bunkers sealed off by the Imperial counter bombardment. But the slaughter had been well and truly turned upon them. The remnants of the Fifth with their allies in the Seventh were making headway into the network of fortifications.

Corgan received regular snippets of intelligence through Wheln. His left flank was sewn up tight by Draven himself but he'd heard nothing from his right, under the remit of a Centurion Obinars. It'd been half an hour since their last visual.

Arines was directing a protracted fire-fight at their leading edge. They'd been stymied as they penetrating a complex series of dugouts, communication trenches and blind revetments. The fighting had been fierce and the casualty rate had crept up again. Ardin was dead, killed after he'd triggered a cunningly disguised booby trap. They were scanning for these now but haste made for sloppy work. The unit was back down to thirty-some able bodies.

'Perri, take ten men and head south. Try and hook up with Obinars. Send me a runner if you find his corpse!'

'The kid headed off, calling out a few names. The kid was capable and the men seemed to respond to him like he was their favourite nephew. He didn't take it badly, which was to the good. Just because the kid knew what he was doing didn't mean that the older men would follow his orders.

Corgan smiled to himself. Perri could only be a couple of years his junior and he was talking like an old hand already. He crept up to where Arines was hunkered down against the trench-wall.

'How's it going?'

'They're dug in like Epidian blood ticks, can't shift 'em!'

'Use the tubes…'

'Tried it, doesn't seem to have much effect.'

'Frag it all,' Corgan swore, tossing his shotgun to the man next to him before unshipping his lasgun and passing that over too. 'Leave it to me, why don't you…'

'What are you doing?'

'Just keep them occupied and don't shoot me in the arse, Arines. You don't want my job, I'm telling you that as a personal favour!'

'I know it! Get yourself killed and I'll hunt you down in the hereafter!'

'Look after my gear. Arines is in charge 'til I get back!'

He jumped and caught hold of the lip of the wall, hauling himself up and over onto the open ground above. There were corpses everywhere, all of them heretics. He had no trouble staying concealed as he crawled forward, flanking the enemy position. A metre from the dugout he rolled onto his back, cinching the laspistol on his chest so it wouldn't impede him and drawing two more from holsters at his side.

He found one on Vogin's body, the other two had been taken as a trophies from other dead men. Corgan hadn't hesitated in claiming all three for himself. He'd always had a deep affinity with small-calibre weapons, it was time to prove it once again.

Rolling onto his front he hopped up into a low crouch. He paused, slowed his breathing, emptied his mind of all other concerns… and leapt.

Dropping into the revetment he marked three men close at hand. One he shot through the top of the head. The second flopped back, winged as Corgan's feet touched the ground. The third took at least two hits from a sustained burst as Corgan dropped into a roll.

Coming to his feet he became instinctively aware of four more enemies in his immediate vicinity. They were turning their weapons on this new and unexpected threat, their macabre features stretched in surprise. He left finger pumped in time with his right, the staccato crack of his pistols chattering away. Two of them dropped without time to cry out, the first losing his entire jaw in a spray of blood, the other with three lasbolts tearing through his torso. One of the heretics fired wildly but Corgan's momentum carried him out of its arc of fire. The heat of that deadly stream caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end.

Corgan jumped, ran three long paces across the revetment wall before coming back to the ground behind one of the remaining two heretics who was felled by his companion's panicked cross-fire. Corgan dropped down on one knee, las-fire streaking crazily over his head. With consummate calm he sent two simultaneous shots through the heretic's open mouth, spreading the back of his head across the revetment wall.

Clip out! The pistol in his favoured right hand chimed at him. He dropped it, going for the one across his chest as two more heretics rushed headlong from a side-passage. They lasted three seconds and hadn't even seen him before they were dead. The flow of bodies stopped. Corgan waited, stock still, his blood rushing in his ears, concentration peaked.

A movement in the corner of his eye brought him round and to his feet with both pistols primed before him. Arines blanched, staring down the twin barrels with blank eyes.

'I think I just shit my pants!' he said.

'Job done!' Corgan lowered his weapons and moved to retrieve the discarded pistol. He'd have to find a fresh clip for it at some point.

'Throne, did you leave any for us?'

'There's one over there that's still alive,' said Corgan over his shoulder. 'I winged him for you 'cause I thought you could use the added advantage!'

'Shit!' Arined laughed, recovering his poise. 'I've never seen anything like it!'

'Lock it up, boys. We've still got work to do.'

xxx

Perri waved Valda, Pars and Kowal forward. They were moving through a narrow communication trench, still no sign of Obinars. Perri was nervous, but focused. He took heart from the grimly confident expressions of those around him. Grendis reminded him of his dead uncle, solid and dependable. They were all dead now, his family. He was glad to have found a new one.

'Something up ahead!' Pars hissed back to them.

'Check it out!'

Pars shuffled forward, Kowal backing him up. They doubled back a few moments later.

'It's one of ours…' Pars cursed. 'Totally blown apart. Whatever they're packing in this corner of hell it looks like it's mass-reactive.'

Pars was a self-proclaimed weapons buff. From what Perri could gather he'd been running guns with a smuggling outfit before he got caught.

'What does that mean?' asked Perri.

'Well, it's non-standard, could be bolter rounds…' he left that suggestion to hang in the air like a bad smell. Perri's nervousness increased a notch or two. None of them needed to mention the rumours of Traitor Astartes.

'What do we think? Is Obinars still out here?' Perri asked.

'This isn't a democracy, Perri.' Grendis retorted. 'Corgan said to hook up with Obinars or report in that he was dead. If we double back, we'll be leaving the others vulnerable.'

Perri squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated.

'Alright, but this is important intel. Pars, go back and find Corgan, tell him what you saw. The rest of us will keep going.'

Pars assented but reluctantly. Perri got the remainder of the unit ready to go forward.

They emerged into a broad concourse. Enemy vehicles were abandoned in droves, ammo carts and gun-carriages mainly, with a few broken down troop carriers too. It was less a road and more a maze. Perri deployed the unit by threes. Kowal and Valda went with another man who hadn't offered his name. Perri, Grendis and Alic followed after, the others hanging back to watch the rear.

'There could be scores of them all around us,' Grendis bitched.

Then they saw the bodies. More of them. Scores of them. Scattered haphazardly amongst the motor pool. They were torn to pieces, entrails strung up around fenders in tattered streamers, limbs strewn here, there and all around. Most were unrecognisable.

Perri was about to heave his guts up when Valda exploded, showering Kowal and the nameless guy with gore. They suffered the same fate within seconds.

Something huge moved into view. Bulky, dull red armour with silver trim, a chain-mail loincloth and horned helm. The eyes glowed with fanatical malevolence.

'Come all ye children of the misguided!' it bellowed, its booming tones brimming with fervour.

'Traitor Marine,' Perri muttered as Grendis flew in two discernible pieces past him. Alic rushed it, blasting away with his lasgun. The marine raised its gauntleted fist and brought it down on the Trooper's head, crushing it down into his torso. Alic flopped aside.

'RUN!' Perri screamed, setting his stance and opening up with his ineffectual weapon.

The Marine strode up to him, ignoring the torrent of las, reaching down and gathering Perri up by the front of his tunic, drawing him in so that he hung, face to face with an ancient and terrible foe.

'Where is the Light, little one? Know the darkness and despair…'


	6. The Last Word

_Alright, people, I've altered this chapter ever so slightly in the penultimate scene (Corgan vs the Word Bearer). Lasguns can now slow Traitor Marines down if you concentrate your fire and Corgan no longer gets trapped under the Marine's dead body (as he would, quite rightly, be incapacitated in the best scenario). Hope you approve these changes.

* * *

**1345 hours – Reserve Trenches on Axial 352, Pelloris Ridge**_

Vaughn slipped in the mud, his shot going wide. The cultist, howling in a blood-frothing frenzy, leapt in with his bayonet. The cadet barely managed to twist out of the way as the blade slashed through his storm coat, scoring his ribs and embedding itself deep in the flak board wall behind him. Pinned in place, Vaughn hesitated.

He was saved by Draven, who put a mass-reactive bolter shell in the side of the cultist's head, reducing it to red mist and bone fragments. Vaughn felt the urge to vomit and fought it.

'Go to it, Cadet,' Draven patted him on the shoulder, then wiped his glove on his pants to remove the blood he picked up in doing so. A stream of penitents pushed past them to secure the bunker.

'We all have to experience the full horror of war at some time or another. There's no shame in showing your distaste for it. Do not take it as a sign of weakness, instead see it as a sign of your good character.'

Vaughn gave in to his body's urge, all the while cursing Draven and his high-and-mighty attitude. The cadet wished that for once the man would show him the same respect he showed to the penitents. After all, he'd never committed a crime. He'd never flouted the Emperor's divine will as these men had. Why did Draven favour them so?

'Fear is a flame, boy. It tempers us that we might be stronger and better weapons in the Emperor's hands. Allow it to exist around you, but do not allow it to control you.'

'I wasn't afraid…'

Draven sighed.

'Very well, but remember this; pride is not a virtue in any man, not even one born to rank and privilege. Pride will kill you quicker than fear.'

'With all due respect, Commissar-General, do we not have a war to win?' Vaughn protested, barely managing to conceal his rancour.

'After you,' Draven replied, raising a single, sardonic brow.

Vaughn moved on through the bunker and out the other end, mounting a shattered stairway to a vantage point that gave a good view of the opposite slope of Pelloris Ridge. The view was dominated by thick black columns of smoke, rising from the smashed remnants of the enemy's evacuating motor-pool. It seemed the Imperial counter-bombardment had caught them just at the pivotal moment when they were most vulnerable. Draven's plan had been to hold back the artillery and lead the heretics into a false sense of security, tempting them to bring their escape vehicles closer. It appeared to have worked.

'Now that, my boy, is glorious!' Draven slapped him on the back. 'To see the enemies of the Imperium brought to their knees. To see them quail in fear of the righteous…'

Vaughn was getting heartily fed up of the man's superior rhetoric.

'What is our strategy, Commissar?'

'Keep pushing, lad. Keep the men tight and bolster their morale as is your duty. They enemy will be broken utterly within the hour.'

Vaughn nodded sourly and advanced once more, his bolt pistol at the ready. He spotted one of the Wardens coming back towards them.

'What's happening?'

'The teams in front are reporting something strange, sir. I thought you should know.'

'Well, what is it?' Draven asked.

'Some kind of sonic vibration. It's setting the men's teeth on edge but other than that it's just a distraction.'

'Then tell them to…'

'Perhaps we should move up the line, cadet.' Draven interrupted. 'Sounds like the men need a little bolstering.'

xxx

**1350 hours – Axial 347, Pelloris Ridge**

Corgan's team were making rapid progress now. Perri had still not returned but all was quiet off to the right flank. Either he'd found nothing or he'd found more than he could handle. Either way, Corgan was feeling edgy and the men were responding to it.

The buzzing sensation wasn't helping. About a minute ago he'd had the feeling like someone had just switched on a thousand high gain vox-horns all at once, putting out a variety of sonic and subsonic wavelengths. His short hairs had risen, the air hummed with static.

It didn't help that they were fighting against a crazed cult of self-mutilating lunatics. There was no predicting what they might be up to.

'Steady boys. It's just some impotent deviltry designed to force us into making mistakes. Pay it no mind. Concentrate on keeping your formation and watching each others backs. We'll get through this.'

**'WHERE IS THE LIGHT!'**

The sounded erupted all around them. Corgan felt like there was a river flowing through his head. The men dropped their weapons, raising their hands to their ears to block out the sound. Corgan quickly ripped off both sleeves of his tunic and tore it into strips, wadding some in his ears and passing the rest out.

'Where is the light that your half-dead Emperor promised you?' The sound was physically more bearable, although some of the frequencies were making him feel nauseous and he watched the others blanche too. 'You fools! Making obeisance to the weakling proxies of a corpse in his Golden Sarcophagus. Where is his light, I ask you?'

Lantry was physically shaking, even as he stooped to retrieve his weapon his eyes darted, as though expecting an ambush at any moment.

_Don't listen,_ Corgan signed in curt gestures.

'You can call me profane, but I merely offer the truth. We are sentient creatures with free will. So why do you continue to linger in ignorance, blind to the glories of autonomy? Throw down your old loyalties to this cruel and manipulative bureaucracy. Surrender yourselves to the bedlam of choice!'

The voice continued but Corgan was no longer paying it any attention. It was pure propaganda. He had to get the attention of his men so focussed as was his own.

_To me,_ he signed. _Pick up your weapons. Focus._

He had to fire up into the air to get Lantry's attention. Troopers Dror and Kalicas snapped out of the spell and started jostling the others back into line. Corgan breathed a sigh of relief as more men started shaking their heads and picking up their guns.

_Come on,_ he gestured.

A man called Joptar fell into point and rounded the corner into a broad communications trench lined with buttresses and littered with debris and blowing ash. No sooner had he disappeared than he was thrown back into view, his torso exploding out behind him and the rest of his carcass flailing pathetically.

Corgan signalled the men to fan out, keeping Wheln behind him. With a series of emphatic gestures the men charged out, weapons firing down to where the shot had originated from.

What he saw there froze his guts more thoroughly than Orrax ever had.

The Traitor Marine stood eight feet tall. His bulky power armour, decorated with the profane sigils of the warp, put the rest of his frame in perspective. His bolter spat explosive rounds that started tearing into Corgan's men. Their own las-fire was bouncing harmlessly off him.

Corgan dove back into cover, dragging Wheln back with him. Arines, Shopal and three others managed to duck behind a buttress of the far side on the roadway. Six men lay dead and dying in the open. Orpio was among them. One of his legs was nowhere to be seen.

Arines was gesturing frantically at Trooper Darron who had their rocket stash strapped across his back. Corgan could hear the Marine coming towards them. He ducked his head out to gauge its intent. It ignored him, heading for Arines' position as though he knew they posed the bigger threat.

He ducked back, signalling the others to gather round. They had to draw its fire, give the others a chance to bring their only effective weapon to bear. He made his meaning clear. Lantry looked ready to faint.

He held up three fingers to count down.

Two.

One.

Go!

They dove out into the open, lasguns blinking furiously. The ballistic force behind their sustained volley shook the thing, striking shards from his external carapace. Other than this the monster was unharmed. The blank-eyed helm turned slowly towards them.

Dror panicked and ran for cover, having caught most of Topal's insides when he exploded in a shower of offal. Kalicas roared in fury and dodged side to side, his finger welded to the trigger stud. In two strides the Marine closed with him, batting him aside while simultaneously mowing two more of Corgan's men down in a hail of mass-reactive shells. Kalicas hit the wall and slid down to land in a heap.

Penitent Trooper Biggs dashed across the Marine's arc of vision, momentarily distracting it. He was slightly too quick even for the Traitor Astartes' superhuman reflexes as he ducked behind a buttress further up the road.

All this transpired in a mere handful of seconds, giving Arines the time he needed to get the rocket primed and loaded. Darron settled the weapon over his shoulder and leaned into the sight. Corgan offered a silent prayer to all the saints he could remember from his time growing up in the convent orphanage. Darron let out a long breath… and fired.

The rocket impacted high on the back of the Marine's right shoulder. The explosion rocked him to his knees, sent his helm and shoulder-pad arcing through the air and blew a massive chunk out of his archaic life-support unit. The Marine had dropped his bolter and cradled his head in both hands, shaking it to clear the daze and recover his equilibrium.

He was still alive.

Corgan didn't hesitate.

He closed with the Marine in three long strides, lasgun and bayonet held before him like a spear. With all his strength he thrust the bayonet through the Traitor Marine's exposed throat and held his momentum to twist the blade with all the force he could muster.

Like a rotten fruit plucked from a wizened branch the Astarte's head flipped up into the air, trailing an arc of red ichor, and landed with a wet thud on the rockrete floor.

He landed heavily on his back behind the Marine's prostrate form, recovering his sense just in time to roll out from under it as it flopped onto its back. Biggs had returned to help him back up and the others gathered round him, crowing with relief.

'That's it,' Arines panted. 'I'm retiring…'

'Where's Darron?' Corgan wheezed.

'Here boss!'

The young penitent yelped as Corgan caught him up in a massive bear-hug that almost crushed the breath out of him.

'That was one hell of a shot, you canny bastard!'

Darron shrugged.

'Didn't kill him though…'

'Didn't expect you to, that's my job,' Corgan grinned.

'Look out…' Biggs cannoned into Corgan from the side just as the snap-crack of a lasrifle rang out. The bolt scored Corgan's shoulder where his head had been a moment before.

Corgan caught a glimpse of a silhouette up on the revetment wall, tracking him with its rifle. Another shot pierced the silence as Corgan fell. He expected to feel the second bolt go through him, but instead the silhouette flailed and dropped down into the trench. Arines lowered his own rifle, waving at the others to fan out.

'Bastard!' Corgan swore, scrabbling to his feet, nursing the welt across his deltoids. 'Where'd he come from?'

'Behind us. He's one of ours,' Biggs replied, training his weapon on the writhing figure.

Corgan was above him within seconds, landing a solid kick to the man's gut.

'I'll teach you, you frakker, no one takes a shot at me and lives to tell his buddies!' Arines grabbed Corgan from behind, dragging him off the screaming penitent. Biggs and Darron grabbed the man by his arms and dragged him up against the wall.

Corgan calmed. It was the cold, hard calm of his youth, when he'd known he was about to commit wholesale, bloody murder.

'Who sent you?'

The man just groaned. Corgan cracked his head around with a left hook that might have broken his jaw if it hadn't been carefully gauged for a maximum of pain and a minimum of damage.

'Who sent you?' He didn't raise his voice. There was ample menace in his voice as it was. He didn't need the volume. As this occurred to him he realised that the loud-hailer had stopped preaching.

'Wolfe… Wolfe sent me!'

Corgan stepped back, his right hand hovering dangerously close to the butt of his pistol.

'I thought as much.'

None of them saw him draw. One moment he was standing at ease, the next he'd put a las-bolt through the man's thigh, severing his femur. A second bolt tore through his gut. The man's screams were numbed by the wadding they still had in their ears.

Corgan allowed the man to feel the excruciating pain of his wounds before putting a third bolt through his heart.

He turned to the others. They were aghast.

'Wolfe would kill you all to get at me. He wouldn't even bat an eyelid. Never forget that.'

He didn't think any of them would see him in quite the same light ever again. Perhaps that was for the best.

xxx

**2100 hours – Reserve Trenches, Pelloris Ridge**

Vaughn slumped down into a corner of the bunker, surrounded by the macabre remains of the heretics that had breathed their last only moments before. The acrid stench of their burnt flesh no longer forced itself on him. He retreated into a world of silent exhaustion.

The enemy were destroyed. Only a few score of them had managed to escape into the delta. Despite the reinforcements from their Traitor Astartes allies, the Imperials had won the day. The cost in lives was overwhelming to the young cadet.

During the next few days the Munitorum would collate the final tally of the dead and wounded. Vaughn didn't want to know what it would amount to.

He himself had made no friends this day. He had thought himself above these men, purer both of heart and mind. The sight of seventeen of them mobbing a rampant Traitor Marine in a furious attempt to drag him from his feet had changed his mind on that score. Eight of those men had been crushed to death as the Marine rolled over them. All would receive posthumous pardons and full commendations for their valour in the face of the enemy. These men were heroes. All of them.

Draven entered the bunker. Vaughn looked up at him, smouldering inside. Waiting for the man to make some belittling comment.

The commissar only nodded, bowed his head and closed his eyes. Tears ran down his cheeks.

'This time is the worst of all, my friend.'

xxx

It amazes me still that on that day, neither of our commissars was required to carry out a single summary execution. Not even when the Traitor Astartes threw themselves on our lines did we falter. Even the most stalwart Imperial Guardsman will falter when the odds are so stacked against him. But even then our valiant boys fought with a kind of feral desperation that blacked out all sense of rationality. We were subject to a temporary madness that led us to throw away our ties to this corporeal world without fear. The priesthood would later claim that the Emperor's Light had truly shone upon us and inspired us to feats of heroism. I think it was more simple than that. Our lads had been reduced to the level of animals and they fought as such: With the primeval ferocity of our most distant ancestors. Who could have known that such would bring us the victory?

Extract from the diaries of Major N. Grampian, XO, VIIth Orrax Penitent.


	7. His Will be Done

**0930 hours – En route to Camp Davish, Pelloris Ridge**

Exhaustion made for a quiet journey as they headed back to their digs. Most of the others had found sleep as soon as they were seated in the bulk transport vehicles. Trooper Darron couldn't sleep. There was still too much adrenaline flowing through his veins. The day kept playing back to him in irresistible idiot repeats.

He'd been part of Vogin's Century before the man's deserved end. He'd been part of the mass, suicidal assault on the sally-trench. He'd seen a more hellish view of war than he'd ever witnessed before. He was one of the few amongst them that had seen battle before, but never anything like this.

He'd been a member of the PDF on his home-world of Salacius Juris. He'd fought the insurrectionists that had sought to bring down the corrupt Imperial Governor. He sold his soul to the Imperial cause only to be demobbed without even a thank you once the risings had been fought down. He'd thought he'd known what war felt like until today.

After his stint in the PDF he'd been abandoned to survive on the mean streets of Juris Diaddi. He'd ended up on Orrax after being caught for a series of petty misdemeanours. He could say he'd been too upset to leave his home behind. The blood he'd spilt for his government was never going to be repaid.

He occupied his hands stripping down his lasgun. He could do this with barely a glance at what he was doing, leaving his eyes free to roam the interior of the flat-bed. He noticed the chief was still awake and looking at him. He offered a nod of acknowledgement that Corgan returned.

Darron had seen plenty of rough-cut characters in his time on the streets of Juris, but none of them could have held a torch to this guy. Corgan was all steel! Perhaps that was why he'd seen them through. Darron was intelligent enough to have learned that it required an iron will to hold a command when the hell of battle came to call.

He wasn't a man to cross, that much was certain.

He looked around at the others occupying the flat-bed. Shopal was the clown of the outfit. There had to be one. He broke through the fear-fog with his jocular, scathing remarks. Darron and Shopal had formed a bond of friendship today. The shoulder wound he'd picked up was still wadded in its mucky-brown wrappings. There hadn't been time to change the dressing.

Arines was snoring in the corner. The big, shaggy, bearded man was as good an NCO as Darron had ever seen. He understood the trials a soldier faced and he knew how to support them through it. Darron thought he might also have been a soldier once, but the man hadn't said anything.

Biggs was a late-bloomer in the unit. He'd shown his mettle during the scrap with the Marine. He was cool under fire. A thinker, but with a solid fighting core to him too. He gave the impression of being an enigma, as if there were more to him than met the eye. Darron didn't know if that was just because he had an aura of calm about him even in the craziest fire-fight. You never saw Biggs pull off a salvo on full auto. Each shot he pumped out was aimed with deathly accuracy, designed to kill with a minimum of fuss.

Wheln was one of many in the regiment. Young, fresh-faced, innocent of character and totally out of his depth. Whatever it was that had landed him on Orrax, Darron would bet money it was nothing violent. Hence his assignment as signalman. You generally kept your vox-man safe, he was your 'permission-to-get-the-hell-out-of-here-sir!'

Darron didn't know Dror well enough to judge him, but he'd seen the guy turn tail and run. That sort of thing was hard to forget. Come to think of it, Darron couldn't remember even seeing Lantry during the scrap with the Marine. He'd likely kept his head down and hoped to go unnoticed. The guy was still white-faced and was muttering to himself under his breath.

Darron looked back down at his lasgun, slotted the barrel back into place and screwed it in tight. He gave it one last wipe down with his oil-cloth and then pushed it down under the bench. Leaning his head back he closed his eyes and was instantly asleep.

It felt like only moments later that he was dragged back into consciousness by shouting inside the truck. A scuffle had broken out in the flat-bed. Dror and Biggs were holding trooper Lantry down. Lantry was frothing at the mouth and gurgling obscenities. The smell of fresh blood pervaded the close confines of the vehicle.

'What's happening?' Corgan bellowed. Someone was hammering on the partition between them and the cab. The truck swerved off the road and ground to a halt.

'Get him outside!'

The occupants of the truck hopped out. Darron reached up to take Lantry's kicking legs. It took all his strength to hold him along with another trooper.

'Where is the light?' Lantry cried, pathetically.

Corgan struck the kid about the face.

'Shut up!'

'Where is the light?'

'Someone shine a lamp in his eyes, dammit! And gag him too, I can't listen to that…' Corgan bellowed. 'What happened?'

Dror was white-faced as he explained how Lantry had started cutting his own face with his bayonet.

'It's like them,' Biggs surmised, cool-eyed as ever.

'What do you mean?' asked Corgan.

'We've been seeing self-mutilation a lot today…' he let the comment hang.

Suddenly Darron was aware of a stiffening in the men around him. The Commissar-General materialised out of the darkness.

'What's going on here, Centurion?'

'I was just trying to figure it out, sir. Looks like one of my men has taken today a little harder than the rest…'

Draven moved forward to look Lantry in the eye. The Commissar's gaze caused the trooper to writhe more furiously than before and scream incoherently. Darron could see the flames of righteousness in Draven's eyes.

The Commissar spun on his heel and stepped away.

'It seems to me, Centurion, like one of your men has succumbed to the taint of Chaos.'

'Where is the light… all fools… linger in ignorance!' Lantry seemed to be affirming the Commissar's edict. He seemed possessed by some maniacal, irresistible urge.

Corgan's shoulders seemed to slip a notch. It was his only outward sign of resignation. What little light there was seemed to glint from his cold, hard eyes in that moment. He unfastened the clip on his side-arm's holster.

'Permission to discharge my fire-arm, sir?'

Draven's features softened a little. There was sympathy and a great sense of sadness emanating from him as he bowed his head.

'This is my duty, Centurion…'

'With all due respect, sir, this is one of my lads. If there's a duty to be done I'd be grateful if you allowed me to undertake it.'

Draven sighed.

'Permission granted.'

Corgan raised his laspistol. A shot screamed out and Lantry went limp in Darron's arms. Corgan tried to make it look casual but Darron had a clear view of his face as he pulled the trigger. The grim set to his jaw, the twitching of the muscles there. Such small signs of tension, but in a man like Corgan they spoke volumes of his inner pain.

Darron respected this strength of character. He'd already known Lantry was a goner. Some of the others looked away. Most of them were even more afraid of Corgan now. They didn't understand his sacrifice.

xxx

**1200 hours, Day 58 – Pelloris Ridge**

Pelloris Ridge had to be guarded against the enemy holed up in the Delta. Corgan's unit was stationed some way north of where they'd finished up the day before. He'd just had time enough to check in on his wounded and catch some shut-eye before shipping out again.

Down the slope behind them the Munitorum had been engaged in cleanup operations since before the sun came up. Corgan and his men had needed to engage in similar work before they could take up station, hauling mounds of bodies up out of the trenches. Most of the bodies were those of the heretics. Each face reminded them of Lantry the night before. They burned these bodies in massive pyres some distance down-wind. The rest, the bodies of their own, were lined up behind the trenches in orderly rows. Corgan went around collecting up bags full of dog-tags to pass on to the campaign clerks when they arrived to collect the dead.

Corgan stood on the parapet, looking down on the city of the Delta. It was unnervingly calm and undisturbed. The last of the morning's mist was dissipating. Gargantuan viaducts wove among the tenements and basilicas and factorum complexes. The docks stood empty of ships and the glittering green sea stretched away into the eternal south.

Corgan wondered how long this picturesque image would survive in his mind. The repatriation of Fered Roathi was not nearly done yet and this was their next objective.

'Sir, there's a commissar here asking for you,' Wheln called up to him from the trench below. Corgan hopped down the steps to join him.

'Which one?'

'I think it's the General's cadet, sir.'

'Great, just what I needed.'

Vaughn stood waiting with two white-armoured MP's in tow, their shotguns brandished before them as though they expected trouble.

'Centurion Princeps Prior Escabar Corgan?' asked the pompous youngster.

'I guess so…'

'Please relinquish your arms and come with me. You are under arrest.'

Corgan snorted with wry amusement.

'On what charges?'

Vaughn stepped closer, lowering his voice.

'You are accused of gross negligence in the field of battle and of murder, Centurion. Please do not resist, you will only make things worse for yourself.'

xxx

**1330 hours – Arbitration Headquarters, Camp Graviers**

The cage door slammed shut behind him. The guard turned his key and clomped off into the better lit recesses of the stockade. Corgan took stock of his surroundings.

The stockade was little more than a prefabricated warehouse filled with barred cages. Most of them were occupied. There wasn't room for a bed, just a pile of filthy rags in one corner. A bucket inside the door served for a toilet. He hoped he wouldn't be here long enough to have to use the 'amenities'.

'What you in for?'

He realised his neighbour was a woman, though it hadn't been obvious at a glance. She was pulling chin-ups from the barred ceiling of her cell. She was fairly heavy-set and her scalp was still close shaven from the enrolment exam back on Orrax. She wore scuffed up boots, filthy penitent-issue breeches and a skin-tight vest that showed off her impressive shoulders, glistening with beads of sweat.

'What's it to you?' he retorted, too distracted by his predicament to layer it with the aggression he would have liked.

She dropped to the floor and turned to face him. She was a fraction shorter than himself, though stockier. The vest stretched tight across her ample chest, which was further accentuated by a droplet of sweat that coursed the upper curve of one breast to run into her cleavage. Her other features were unremarkable, except for her eyes that had a certain sharp clarity to them.

She stuck her hand through the bars in a gesture of friendship.

'I'm Lita.'

He eyed her hand for a moment, warily.

'How do I know you're not going to try and pull my arm off through the bars?' he speculated. She certainly looked capable. 'You could be in here on account of some random psychotic episode…'

She grinned and Corgan instantly decided that he liked her.

'I survived the Ridge, didn't I?'

He shook her hand, allowing himself to crack the barest of smiles. Her grip was a firm as her physique suggested. It was true, though. None of them could deny that the Ridge had been a psychopathic episode they'd all participated in.

'I'm Corgan, feel free to call me sir, at least until further notice.'

'Field promotion?'

'You could say that.'

'What outfit were you with?'

'The Fifth, Second Cohort.'

'Right. I heard you boys found your own little piece of hell up there.'

'Where were you?'

'Down in the mud with the Sixth.'

'See much action?'

'More than I wanted to but not enough to kill me.'

'I guess we're more likely to die in here than out there.'

'Not me. I'll get a few lashes, maybe, nothing serious. So, what did you do?'

Corgan snorted.

'What didn't I do? The charges sound cooked up to me. What about you?'

She rolled her eyes and shrugged.

'I… uh… _misinterpreted _a direct order.'

'I thought that was a shoot-on-station offence?'

'It is if you don't manage to save your unit's bacon in the process. They could've tried shooting me but they would have been next on the fatalities list. My boys were looking after me. He had to wait until we came back in to file charges.'

'So it's a medal and five lashes?' Corgan asked as a Warden arrived to unlock her cell and take her away.

'I reckon.' She said, holding her arms out for the cuffs.

'Well, good luck'

'Keep it, sounds like you'll need it more,' she winked, as she was escorted away.

xxx

**1130 hours, Day 59 – Abitration Courthouse, Camp Graviers**

Decurion Torvik barely managed to suppress a snarl as Corgan shot an insolent smirk in his direction. He felt his Administratum representative cringe away from him in fear. The Warden's anger emanated from him in waves. He'd show that impudent upstart who was superior around here.

'All rise!' cried the court-orderly. A door at the back of the sparse, cold chamber opened wide. Three Magistrates entered to take their seats behind the long metal table, flanked by shotgun-wielding Arbites.

_Here comes my justice,_ Torvik mused.

'This court is now in session, the Honourable Lord D'Boussey presiding. The defendant will remain standing.' Everyone else sat down.

'Who would bring charges against this man?'

Torvik's counsel stood, rustling the papers on the desk before him.

'Decurion Torvik of the Fifth Regiment, Orrax Penitent. Formerly an Adept of the Arbites stationed on Ultima Sextus, your honour.'

'Name the charges, please.'

'Decurion Torvik accuses Penitent Trooper Escabar Corgan of Gross Negligence in the Field of Battle and of Murder in the First Degree, your honour.'

Corgan's counsel stood. Torvik recognised him as the Commissar-General's own cadet.

'I would like to raise an objection at this point, your honour. The defendant was promoted in the field to Decurion Princeps Prior by the Commissar-General himself. This rank was certified upon the Commissar's return to regimental headquarters yesterday morning. I have the relevant documentation here.'

'Objection sustained, please present it to the court-orderly. The defendant will be referred to by his right and proper rank, counsellor.'

Torvik fumed with rage. How had this come about? He wanted to rail and shout and break things with his meaty fists.

'The prosecution will state its case,' intoned the Magistrate. Torvik's counsel rustled his papers again, more nervously than before.

'Your honour,' he stammered. 'Decurion Torvik asserts that the Centurion did wilfully leave him to suffocate or burn to death inside his tank while the Decurion was unconscious. The vehicle had been immobilised and set on fire by a shell-hit. This is the reason for the charge of negligence. On the charge of murder, Decurion Torvik states that another member of the squad, whom he himself dragged from the flaming wreck upon regaining consciousness, had been shot in the head with a lasgun from close range. Although the Decurion cannot substantiate the assumption that the Centurion fired the shot, it can be assumed that as he had taken command of the unit it was done with his knowledge and approval, thus amounting to murder in the first degree. Said charges occurred on the morning of 2-057-575-M41.'

The magistrate turned his craggy features towards Corgan, whose expression was blank.

'How does the defendant plead on the charge of gross negligence?'

'Not guilty, your honour.'

'And how does the defendant plead on the charge of murder?'

'Not guilty, your honour.'

Torvik gripped the edge of the desk in his gauntleted hands, his teeth clenched against an outburst. How could he stay so calm? The Magistrate turned back to Torvik's side of the room.

'I see before me a distinct lack of evidence, counsellor.'

'Your honour, it is the nature of war that such evidence is often lost long before the crimes can be brought to trial.'

'Nevertheless, as a direct result of this lack the hearing will be far from a cut-and-shut case. The word of a Decurion, be he formerly of the Adeptus or not, carries less weight than that of a Centurion even if he has been raised from the ranks of the penitent.' The magistrate pursed his lips thoughtfully.

'I will hear statements, then, if this is to be a battle of rhetoric. Decurion Torvik, you will state your case by describing to me the events as you remember them and in as much detail as possible.'

Torvik stood, glad to be offered this opportunity. It was time to get creative.

**0900 hours, Day 57 – Pelloris Ridge**

The darkness of unconsciousness receded, replaced with the darkness of a cabin full of smoke. Torvik coughed, unable to draw breath. He was still in his harness. He hit the release but nothing happened. After a moment of panic he realised it was already loose He was just hanging in the straps. He threw it off and collapsed to the floor, pressing his face to the grille-work to try and find clean air. He managed to stay conscious long enough to tear a square of cloth from his sleeve to hold over his mouth.

His eyes were streaming and the smoke was impenetrable. The heat on his face told him the tank was on fire.

He had to get out.

With one arm extended he probed his way forward, trying to find the side-hatch. His hand brushed across the remains of one of his men. Were they all as dead as this one? Moving closer he saw that it was Erriks, or what was left of him. The top half of his head was a ruin of fused bone and cauterised flesh. Torvik had seen las-wounds before. From the angle of entry he judged the shot had come from _inside_ the tank. This was no accidental death.

He found the door, realised it was jammed. But there was light coming in from somewhere. He probed the hull, heading away from the heat of the flames and spotted a slash of clean, bright light through the smoke. He hauled himself out and scrabbled away from the wreck, fearing a secondary explosion.

Shells were still dropping all around him. Corpses and twisted hulks littered the slope. There was no sign of any other member of his squad. The damn cowards had left him to burn to death in that metal coffin. They had better hope death got its hands on them before he did. He leaned back against a neighbouring wreck to take stock of himself.

His eyes were still streaming. His mouth and nostrils were clogged with acrid, oily ashes and his ears still rang from the knock on the head that must had rendered him unconscious in the first place. In short none of his senses were serving him as they should and he was alone in this charnel yard of ruinous death.

He curled into a ball, almost involuntarily, and succumbed to wracking sobs.

Some minutes later he had recovered himself enough to take one last look around himself. For the first time he realised he was covered in blood, but it was not his own. It was the blood of the shredded corpses he'd crawled over to escape the tank. Corpses he'd barely even registered at the time but which some part of him had been aware of nevertheless.

He saw that the hatch of the Chimera against which he'd been leaning was hanging ajar. It beckoned to him. He crawled inside to find it deserted. The occupants had managed to escape. Curling up into a corner once more he resigned himself to the fitful shaking that overwhelmed him.

He was immune to the sounds that assaulted him. The shelling receded and by midday it had stopped altogether. He might have heard the roar of six hundred eager engines as they passed his hiding place by and moved on up the hill, but he didn't respond. He remained hidden, unable to force his limbs to respond.

Darkness fell. Torvik regained some of his faculties. He realised that he was dead if he stayed here and was found, whether by friend or foe. He had to move or at least do something. He had to blend in with the carnage and ruin. The only way to do that without giving his friends reason to kill him was to move up-hill, but to do so would bring him within reach of enemy guns.

He couldn't decide on a course of action. In the end he dared not venture out of the broken-down vehicle.

Morning came and Torvik was still wide awake and hiding out. He peered out the hatch to see if he could gauge the results of yesterday's madness. Down in the distance, near the bottom of the slope, he could just make out Imperial cleanup crews starting the clear away the wrecks and their incumbent bodies. No doubt there would be medical teams with them, searching for wounded.

Torvik experienced a moment of clarity. He'd been wounded. Perhaps it was just a knock to the head but that still counted. Provided he was clever enough he might just get away with it.

He ventured out, keeping low so that he wasn't seen from below. His own Chimera had stopped burning sometime in the night. A quick inspection told him that if he laid himself across the rent in the hull it would look as though he'd managed to use the last of his strength to find clean air. It might just be credible enough to save his life. He arranged himself just so and feigned unconsciousness, ignoring his discomfort.

Within the hour a medical crew came scouting through his vicinity. They spotted him and approached to see if he was still alive. As they dragged him out he affected a groan.

'We've got a live one!' cried one of the medics.

'Emperor be praised!'

'He seemed remarkably intact…'

'Unlike his comrades.'

'No, there's only three corpses that I can make out. Some of them must have got out. Guess they thought this one was a goner!'

'Lucky for him. If they'd realised he was still alive he might've ended up like those others. Get their tags if you can, we'll mark 'em up.'

'He's got a mild concussion, I think,' came a third voice, having dragged Torvik's limp eye-lids open to shine a light into them. 'He's also suffering from smoke inhalation but other than that he's quite hale.'

'Alright, let's get him on a stretcher and back down to the MASH.'

Whatever happened to him from that moment on, Torvik resolved never to divulge his actions of the previous day to any soul. He would take the secret of his cowardice to the grave.

xxx

**1145 hours – Arbitration Courthouse, Camp Graviers**

Torvik finished his account with a flourish. Corgan had watched the man fidget and squirm all the way through it. The whole story was a pack of lies. Still, it had been entertaining. He especially liked the bit about Torvik dragging Erriks' lifeless corpse from the burning wreck, thinking him still alive, and then rounding up a team of dazed and leaderless penitents for a heroic advance. That was rich. No penitent worth his salt would have passed up the opportunity to shoot Torvik on sight given half a chance.

'Thank you, Decurion. May I ask, why did it not seem prudent to provide a corroborated account of your heroic actions?'

'Objection, your honour: My client is not on trial today,' Torvik's counsellor put in.

'Not today, perhaps,' the Magistrate replied quizzically. 'Centurion, please summarise for me the events as you recall them.'

Corgan stood, standing to attention as respectfully as he could manage. It wouldn't do for him to make a bad impression and allow Torvik to get away with his cockamamie bull.

'Your grace, after the shell hit most of us were still trapped in our harnesses. Luckily one of the cages had been damaged by the impact, allowing Penitent Trooper Ardin to hit the release lever. Troopers Jarny and Tolpo were killed instantly by the impact as they were closest to it, but more or less everyone else took shrapnel wounds to varying degrees. Trooper Erriks, whom the Decurion claims was murdered, had taken a fatal shrapnel wound to the groin which had severed his artery. He was bleeding out and we had no medic on station. I saw fit to offer him the Emperor's mercy and did so without consulting with my squad-mates.

'Trooper Shopal had found that the door was, as noted by the Decurion, jammed shut. He did, however, spot the rent in the hull. I told everyone to evacuate, fearing that the flames might trigger a secondary explosion and kill us all. Meanwhile I checked on the Decurion. He was, as he has stated, covered in blood, though I did not know that this was the blood of Jarny and Tolpo. Unfortunately the Decurion's bulky armour prevented me from being able to check his pulse and I could not detect any discernible breathing motion. Nevertheless I tried to release him from his straps. The weight of his armour once more prevented me from doing this. I took the decision that the risk of staying inside the tank to rescue him, even if he was still alive, was too high.

'My unit had been ordered to take the Ridge. This is what we did. I believe my actions and the actions of the other men in my unit are ample justification for this decision. The details should be in the report my counsellor handed to your orderly.

'I'll admit to being heartily relieved that the Decurion survived. My abandonment of him weighted heavily on my conscience, though perhaps not as heavily as my act of mercy for Trooper Erriks.'

'You lying son of a grope!' Torvik bellowed, rising like a tidal surge from his seat. He had grown increasingly red in the face as Corgan told his story. Now he was boiling over.

'I'll have order in this courtroom, Decurion Torvik!' the Magistrate cried. Torvik's counsellor had bolted under the table and lay quivering in a ball.

Torvik subsided, realising his error. The Magistrate turned back to face Corgan, who had suppressed his wry smirk. He had always known he was a good liar and today he'd proved it. He hadn't had to go too far away from the truth in claiming to have tried to rescue Torvik. Just far enough.

'Thank you, Centurion, for your frank and thorough report. I see you have also listed three men as witnesses to your actions on the day…'

'Yes, your grace, though they might not be able to corroborate my attempted rescue of the Decurion as they had been ordered to evacuate. I'm sure you can understand the expedience of this.'

D'Boussey pursed his lips in thought, nodding slowly to himself. He turned to his subalterns and they exchanged a round of hushed whispers.

'It is the judgement of this court,' he began, making his final decree. Corgan tensed and Torvik gathered his hands up into fists. 'That the charge of Gross Negligence be thrown out of this courtroom with disdain. The acts of heroism perpetrated by the defendant are beyond reproach. They were witnessed by hundreds of surviving penitents who might not be alive had he taken the risk of rescuing the Decurion. The charge of Murder in the First Degree is also refuted. The lack of evidence would have rendered it impossible to convict and yet the defendant has admitted to it being an act of mercy. I can find no grounds on which to deny or uphold this claim.' He brought the hammer down and the magistrates stood to file out of the room.

'The verdict is spoken, let no man doubt the Emperor's will has been done!' intoned the court-orderly.

Torvik favoured Corgan with a venomous look that received only amused contempt in return. If Corgan knew anything about retribution, he knew that Torvik would be back to try and claim it.

Let him come.


	8. An Ambush

_Glossary (I use a few slang words that I made up myself so here are the definitions just in case it's not obvious enough what I'm talking about.)_

"_Beetles" – MP's or Wardens (because they wear full-body carapace armour)_

"_Blacktops" – Commissars (reference to their predominantly black caps)_

"_MASH" – Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (like in the Korean War)_

"_Pigsty" – colloquialism for PIGSDE (Penitent Imperial Guard Sanctioned Drinking Establishment, like the NAAFI in WWII)_

_P.s. Fered Roathi has a 32 hour day so if the time doesn't look right, that's why…_

**1640 hours, Day 59 – Orrax Vth Billets, Pelloris Ridge**

'It's good to have you back, Corgan!' Arines smiling face was filled with relief.

'It's good to _be_ back. Hope you've been looking after the boys in my absence.'

'As best I could. They're a rowdy lot.'

Corgan surveyed the long, low block they'd been billeted in. The floors and walls were still gleaming after the ministrations of the Munitorum scrubbing crews. No one had wanted to occupy these quarters after the taint of Chaos had left its mark, but it was better than sleeping in tents.

'So, what's been happening?' asked Corgan.

'Well, the Fifth was pretty beaten up as you know. Second Cohort's been taking up survivors from decimated units and men coming out of the MASH. We've also had three squads reassigned to us from the Sixth Legion. The Century is up to just over half strength with six squads, but rumour has it we're to be re-tagged.'

'What does that mean?'

'Apparently Draven wants you to command the Cohort!'

'Frak!' Corgan sat down on the end of a nearby bunk to absorb this unexpected possibility.

'It's not official yet. First Century took a hiding and we've folded the survivors into our squads. If we're re-tagged the First… well, you get it! I've got Shopal looking into it.'

'What do the men make of these rumours?'

'You know them, they're all full of beans...'

'Well, in the meantime I guess I should meet with these other section leaders,' he said. 'Set it up for me, would you?'

'No problem. Looks like the welcoming committee's arrived…'

Corgan stood and grinned as he saw the delegation coming up the aisle between the bunks. Shopal headed up the motley bunch with Darron, Wheln and Biggs following. And there, wheeling himself up behind them, his skin still blue-tinged from his recent battle with hypoxia, was Frocar.

'Well, well, well,' said Shopal, his face split, as ever, with that irrepressible grin. 'Looks like the black-tops mislaid something…'

'Did you really think they could pin anything on me?' Corgan replied.

'Other than a medal, you mean?'

'Now if the black-tops mislaid anything it's my medals,' said Corgan, with emphasis on the plural. 'How you doing Frokes?'

'I itch…'

Frocar was sporting a number of new implantations. Because they were new he was still on an intravenous drip, suspended from a pole welded to his bath-chair. The itching would be the side-effects from the cocktail of morphia and immuno-suppressants. He was bulked out with bandages and adheso-wraps to protect the burgeoning synth-flesh beneath.

'Looks like they really went to town on you.'

'Yes sir. I've got three metal ribs, a fully-augmetic pelvis and several pins in my femur. Hurts like hell.'

'Hey that's nothing,' Shopal interjected. 'Orpio's gonna get a fully bionic leg…'

'He survived then. Good for him. What about Kalicas and did anyone find out what happened to Perri?'

'Kali's okay, just a major concussion and a few broken bones.'

'Excellent, I need all the lunatics I can get…'

They laughed along with him, remembering how Kali had stood his ground as the Traitor Marine charged him.

'Frocar's been trying to find out about Perri,' said Arines. 'No news is good news, right?'

'He might turn up yet,' said Frocar.

The looks exchanged by the others told a different story. But Frocar's quiet intensity spoke of his obsession to find out the truth.

The silence that ensued was interrupted abruptly as Wheln and Biggs were shoved aside.

'You never mentioned you were a hero…' The woman from the stockade, Lita, entered the little circle with a smile on her lips and a glint in her mischievous eyes. Corgan met her challenging gaze with a little smile of his own, noting the chevrons on her jacket.

'I hope your being here isn't another _misinterpretation_ of a direct order, Decurion.'

'Of course not, sir. Didn't anyone tell you I'd been posted to your command?'

She flicked the front of his uniform as she turned on her heel and made off to complete whatever errand she was on.

'You've met Decurion Kierst then?' Arines asked, raising an eyebrow at Corgan.

'Briefly. In the lockup.'

'Doesn't surprise me in the least. She's a hard-ass piece of work if ever there was one.'

'Tell me about it,' Corgan smirked. 'When she's around I fear for my life…'

'Yeah but in a good way, right, boss?' Shopal grinned. Corgan punched him amiably on the shoulder.

xxx

**1655 hours**

'What's all this?' asked Arines, stomping over to inspect the massive crate the Munitorum had just deposited outside the barracks. Corgan finished signing the docket and handed the slate back to the Munitorum driver who returned to his loader and drove away.

'This is our specialist kit for Day 61.'

'Specialist?'

'I'm not supposed to tell you anything, but once you see what's inside it'll become clearer.'

'So let's not waste any time.' Arines hoisted a crowbar the driver had left for them and cracked open the box. Corgan helped him clear away the straw wadding from on top of the contents.

'Let's see, black flak jackets, duraweave with steel-plate lining. Nice…'

'Cameleoline ponchos, slouch caps, duraweave webbing,' Corgan threw items over his shoulders as they went through the contents. Some of the others ambled over to see what was going on.

'And that's just the dressing on the salad,' Corgan smirked. 'This is the meat of the meal!' He lifted a rifle from beneath the bundles of jackets and plastek-wrapped ponchos. It was a compact, short-bodied weapon with a folding skeleton stock and a slightly-longer-than-necessary, snub-nosed barrel. Each of the sickle-pattern magazines held thirty or so nine millimetre, solid-slug rounds.

Arines whistled, impressed. Then it occurred to him.

'They're kitting us out for stealth.'

Corgan gave him a meaningful look. He didn't look to be relishing the fact himself but the gun certainly felt good in his hands.

'Throne!' the bearded man swore. 'This job gets more and more interesting the longer I hang around. You think we'll get our medals if we come back alive?'

'I'll be happy just to come back alive and in one piece. They can keep their shiny ribbons for all I care,' Corgan replied.

xxx

**2230 hours – Penitent Imperial Guard Sanctioned Drinking Establishment (PIGSDE or "Pigsty"), Pelloris Ridge**

Corgan stumped out into the darkness, leaving the crowded, noisy, lho-wreathed common room of the pigsty behind him. The air was cool on his face, chasing away some of the alcohol-induced muzziness he'd subjected himself to. The booze in there was barely worthy of the title, but it gave the men the perception that they were better treated. The MP's were out in force with their shock-mauls, ready to spring into action if any trouble sparked off.

Corgan had drunk enough. He wanted to get some sleep before the busy day ahead. A day full of briefings, equipment distribution and exhaustive checks on said equipment. The delta was getting closer. They wouldn't be able to enjoy a drink among friends for a long while after tonight.

'Ho there, Centurion. Wait up!'

He stopped, spinning on his heel and instantly regretting it. The world kept moving even after he stopped. Perhaps he'd imbibed a little too much of the Munitorum's excuse for beer.

He needn't have worried about his slight inebriation, however. It was only Lita Kierst. For a moment he'd thought it was Wolfe's cronies out to get him.

'Nice night for a walk, don't you think?' she asked, materialising out of the shadows with her easy, confident stride.

'Never been much interested in walking for walking's sake,' he replied gruffly. 'Mind you, I grew up on Necromunda. Sight-seeing isn't a favoured pastime when all you can see is ash-blown wastelands from horizon to horizon and acid-smog hanging over all.'

'Poetic…' she replied with a pert smile. 'I guess you missed out. If there's one thing I miss about Garganis Aquilas – and believe me there aren't many – it's the blood-red dawns we used to have.'

Corgan grunted his acknowledgement.

'I was just headed back to get some shut-eye. Mind if I walk with you a ways?'

'I guess not,' Corgan replied.

They started off towards the billets. Corgan could feel the fresh offshore breeze cleaning the alcohol from his senses. He couldn't think of anything to say. He'd never been a conversationalist.

'So how come you never mentioned you were the Saviour of Pelloris Ridge?'

Corgan looked at her in surprise.

'Is that what they're calling me?'

'Some. I hear one of the former minstrels is composing a song about Day 57 and you feature in it quite heavily.'

'Frak!' he swore. 'I did what anyone in my place would've done…'

'Maybe, but not everyone could've pulled it off, I reckon.'

'Are you sucking up to me, Decurion?' he smirked at her sidelong.

She just raised an eyebrow and gave a lop-sided smile as though unable to contain her mirth.

'You get that medal yet?' he asked, for a change of subject more than anything else.

'Are you kidding?'

'Right. No medals until after the Delta.'

'It's cheaper that way.'

They continued on in more companionable silence. Corgan was getting to like the irascible Lita Kierst the more he got to spend time with her. He would never have pictured her as being his type, but she was proving the maxim that looks could be deceiving. He wondered if she was as strong as she looked.

They passed into a narrow part of the by-way between two tall, windowless buildings. Corgan would have picked a safer route if he hadn't been so distracted by his companion. They were forced to stop in their tracks when three burly men stepped out of the darkness three metres in front of them, blocking their path. With no outward sign of surprise or perturbation Corgan glanced over his shoulder to see three more toughs had blocked their angle of retreat.

Lita looked up at him with a grim smile. The gleam in her eyes was the promise of pain, this time.

'Looks like three each,' Corgan said, loud enough for all to hear.

'Think you can handle three?' she asked, 'I don't mind taking four…'

'I think I can manage, no need to break a sweat on my account.'

'You're going down this time, Corgan' said one of the shadowy figures in front of them, a weight of menace in his deep, hollow tones.

'Is that you, Roarke? My my, I'm truly honoured…' Corgan replied with a smirk they probably couldn't see.

There was no mistaking the Catachan. He was huge, thick-limbed and slab-muscled. He looked as though he was carved from stone with his angular frame and features, etched in the cold light of the stars. The men flanking him seemed squat and unimpressive next to Roarke.

'Keep it quiet, boys,' the giant growled. 'Let's not let the MP's spoil our fun, right?'

They moved. Lita instinctively moved to cover the rear while Corgan faced Roarke and his cronies down. The Catachan hung back to allow Hairy and Broke-nose to surge forward, arms outstretched. Corgan knew he could use their physical bulk and their superior numbers against them. But he also knew that it was over as soon as one of them got a good grip on him.

He twisted under the grasping arms and between them, ducking to the side as Roarke, anticipating his move, swung a boulder of a fist at him. Corgan backed up against the wall and once more Roarke gave way to his cronies.

Broke-nose charged. Corgan slipped to the side allowing the man to careen headlong into the rockcrete bunker, leaving a smear of blood and skin-scrapings as he slumped to his knees.

Corgan wasted no time. Placing a foot on Broke-nose's shoulder he launched himself into a somersault directly over Hairy's more cautious line of advance. As he passed overhead he grabbed Hairy's copious side-burns in both hands, forcing the man to double over backwards while simultaneously smashing the back of the man's head into his own shoulder as he landed.

White-hot pain lanced through Corgan's upper torso and he prayed he hadn't broken his collarbone with his hair-brained stunt, a wrestling move he'd learned in the seedy bars of the Underhive.

He leapt away as Roarke came crashing towards him, spittle flying, roaring with pure hatred. His thrust missed but Corgan was back up against the opposite wall, now. The pain of his shoulder left him completely at the mercy of the Catachan.

Roarke growled in appreciation of his moment of power.

'You like ducking and diving, don't you, little flea? Why not fight me like a real man, eh?'

He reached back and drew his blade. The silvery length of steel was not his treasured Devil's Fang, taken from him when he was sent into exile on Orrax. It was, nevertheless, an impressive piece of equipment. Roarke obviously relished the chance to blood it properly in the red ichor of his enemy.

Corgan knew he had no chance of beating a Catachan in a knife-fight. They were born with a blade in their hands and their very survival into manhood depended upon the ability to strike faster than a spine-snake. But he refused to be cowed by this brute. He'd never been beaten by the Catachans yet and he wasn't about to lie down and die like this.

He drew out his own blade, pathetically small by comparison.

'Bring it on, pond-scum.'

'This is for Jamma, Starkey and Bevier. Rulf, Elvin and Insomniac. You were responsible for their deaths and I'm here to collect…'

'So what are you waiting for?' Corgan snarled.

'I suppose I just like to see you squirm…'

Corgan smiled. It was the rictus leer of the deaths-head motif that adorned his Penitent Troopers jacket..

'Sorry to disappoint you…' he said, as Lita smashed a heavy wooden beam over the Catachan's head. Roarke crumpled like a sack of rocks.

'Nice one!' Corgan grinned appreciatively. She had dealt with her three with alacrity. They lay in a heap not far down the alley-way.

'Told you I'd take four but no, you wouldn't have it…' she replied with a playful jibe, swiping the sweat from her brow. 'Come on, let's get out of here before the beetles turn up…'

'Hold on a second, I've got a message to send.'

Corgan stooped to retrieve Roarke's shiny new knife, tucking it into his belt. He took his own blade and spread the man's meaty hand palm-down on the hard-packed earth. He then drove the blade through the hand and into the ground. Roarke's body went into a brief spasm but he remained unconscious. The ground darkened with the sluggish flow of his blood.

'You hurt your shoulder,' Lita observed and tore open his jacket and vest before he could raise a protest. Her deft hands ran over the bones, squeezing and probing in a way that sent pain flashing though him.

'Nothing broken,' she declared, but not before running her eyes over his hard, exposed torso with something like relish in her eyes. She grinned up at him and he couldn't help but smile back.

'You're a piece of work,' he said. 'I'm just glad you're on my side.'

xxx

**0900 hours – Orrax Vth Billets, Pelloris Ridge**

Corgan had come out of his confinement to find that the Legions had been radically redeployed. Some eighteen hundred men of the Fifth had been killed in the assault on Pelloris Ridge and only a little over two thousand three hundred remained on active duty. The rest were either out of action or still on the critical list. There were quite a few MIA's, but that was to be expected in a fire-storm of suitable magnitude. Sometimes even the dog-tags didn't survive.

The Sixth had fared better, hence Draven had reassigned some of their units to even out the numbers for the coming battle down in the Delta. It was fortunate for Draven that most of the reassigned personnel saw it as an honour rather than a slight. Stories already glorified the heroic exploits of those that had fought up on the higher ground.

Shopal, the resident gossip trafficker, spent his time trying to confirm the rumours that claimed Draven wanted Corgan to lead the Second Cohort. It transpired that the Commissar-General had indeed suggested it, at the same time as he had put Corgan's name forward for a commendation (still pending, Corgan noted). There had, however, been too much resistance from the ex-Arbites element of his command cadre. He had, in short, been shouted down. That Corgan had been promoted to Centurion was bad enough and although Draven could have pushed the recommendation through he obviously didn't want to rock the boat too much in the run-up to the Delta.

Corgan had set about getting the feel for his command, which had been retagged as the Second Century. This in itself was a promotion, but one that Corgan could stomach a lot better. It make him Centurion Pilus Posterior and he stood second in command of the Cohort. Arines had briefed him vaguely on who his direct superior was and in turn who should cow-tow to Corgan himself, but they were all just names in the end.

Corgan was more interested in the men and women of the Century itself. Arines introduced him to the Decurions Jopry and Poalan, two ex-Arbites formerly of the Sixth who undoubtedly resented Corgan's superiority over them. They were old school Adepts, with all the preconceived ideas this cursed them with.

Arines and Kierst led two of the other sections. Arines had earned his squad and Lita had evidently taken command of the other squad assigned to him from the Sixth. He wasn't about to argue the toss with her after last night's display.

But that still left him with a set of stripes to dole out. He would have liked to have given them to Frocar, although he wasn't sure the fellow was ready for a squad command yet. He might also have considered Perri if the kid wasn't still missing. Then again, the kid was probably too young for it. That left him with a choice between Darron and Biggs. In the end he went with Biggs. The man was quietly proficient and well-respected. Besides that he'd saved Corgan's life at least twice up on the Ridge. He put Darron next in line for a squad as soon as Jopry or Poalan bought the farm and he reasoned that wouldn't be long.

Corgan would lead the last squad himself, picking out Wheln, Darron, Shopal, Dror and Pars, as well as a dark-skinned man called Andulla. Dror was a weak link having turned tail when they faced down the Marine. Corgan wanted to keep him close.

He returned to his Spartan little room when he was done to take stock of his things. There hadn't been time the day before. Lifting his pack up onto the bunk he opened it up. Donning his gloves he reached inside to lift out the bloody parcel he'd brought down from the Ridge on Day 56.

He sat down and unwrapped it, turning it over in his hands to inspect the grisly trophy.

'Nice digs,' Lita Kierst had appeared soundlessly in the doorway. She came in and plopped herself down on foot of the bed.

'I've had worse.'

She nodded at the thing in his hands.

'You might want to get that cleaned up…'

'Know anyone who can do that sort of thing? I wouldn't know where to start.'

'Maybe. Let me see.' She reached out and took it from him. A sharp intake of breath registered her surprise.

'Frak, is that a…' she was unable to finish her question.

Corgan nodded.

'You killed it?'

'With my bayonet. I had help.'

'And you thought you'd keep this?'

'Sure, why not? I guess you could get me into a lot of trouble, Lita…' It was the first time he'd used her name. It felt like submerging himself in cold water. A shiver ran down his spine.

'That I could,' she replied, standing up and heading for the door. 'I'll get it cleaned up for you. Discreetly. How's your shoulder?' she asked, turning back to look at him.

'Stiff.'

She tossed him an unmarked plastic tub. 'It's an holistic remedy, a salve that should ease the swelling. See you around, Corgan.' She left with another enigmatic little smile, tucking the Traitor Marine's head under her arm.

Corgan watched her go, wondering how he could know that she wouldn't go straight to the Commissar-General with that thing. Denounce him as a heretic. But he did know. He was almost certain that Lita Kierst had much more interesting things in mind. And what bothered him the most was that he didn't think he'd be raising any objections when she made those intentions clear.

He laid back on his bunk nursing a little smile of his own.

xxx

**2830 hours**

Corgan couldn't sleep. Thoughts of the days to come disturbed him and the darkness was his only comfort. It reminded him of his spiritual home in the dark recesses of the Underhive. He'd always felt safe even in the most perilous reaches of that forsaken corner of civilisation. He might not have found what he was looking for down there but at least he'd been free. Here, no matter how good it felt to be part of a pseudo-family again, he was still weighted down by responsibility. The last couple of days had brought it home to him and in some ways he regretted the way he'd grasped at authority up on the Ridge. But if he hadn't where would he be now? A mass graveyard most likely. But it wasn't just death that Corgan feared. What frightened him most was mutilation.

He liked being whole. He didn't want to have to cope with prosthetics, the endless irritation and the immuno-suppressants he would need for the rest of his life. He didn't want to feel the ghostly pain of loss. The thought of it froze him to the marrow.

A chink of light splashed across the wall as the door to his room was opened a crack. Corgan was instantly tensed and ready to leap into action. He remained absolutely still, hoping to at least catch the intruder off-guard as they thought him asleep.

'There's no need to pretend you're asleep, I'm not here to kill you…'

It was Lita.

'What are you doing here?'

'Couldn't sleep. Guess you couldn't either.'

'I sleep light, these days. But yeah, you're right.'

She sat at the foot of the bed in her now-accustomed spot. Corgan hauled himself into a sitting position, leaning back against the headboard. They sat in silence for a few moments.

'Gonna be a pretty shit-storm tomorrow,' she offered.

'You better believe it.' Corgan could sense the hesitation in her, a hesitation he hadn't sensed in any of their previous encounters. She was finding it hard to let down her walls. Corgan could identify with that.

He'd managed to engage with his men in a kind of casual camaraderie, while all the while thinking of them like adopted younger brothers. Except perhaps Arines, who was more like an uncle. He was jocular when it suited him and stern the rest of the time. He hadn't really connected with them on any other level. He still found himself to be an island, cast adrift amongst his fellow man. He'd always been that way. He supposed it was his upbringing. The Sororitas nuns had nurtured him with a kind of cold, distant love. The 'family' had been far too large for them to offer anything more than the absolute minimum of affection. Not that he'd asked for it but in his own self-analysis he reasoned this to be the cause of his self-sufficient nature. He supposed it to be an advantage in the cruel, uncompromising universe in which he existed. But it gave him little comfort.

'Don't talk much, do you?' He could hear the smirk in her voice even if the darkness hid it from him.

'Nope,' he replied, realising he sounded cold and regretting it. Nevertheless, he couldn't bring himself to overstep the machismo line.

'So you're a man of actions rather than words?'

'Damn right.'

She slid up the edge of the bed, squeezing herself up against his thigh. He felt a tingle of excitement shiver through his body. She leant in, one arm coming over him to support her weight, her other hand stroking the line of his jaw. Her lips were surprisingly soft and warm on his. It was a hesitant kiss she gave him, but one filled with intimate promise.

'Prove it!'

**0530 hours, Day 60**

They slept for a time, their tensions relieved if only for a little while. Lita woke as the sun was rising, the light filtering through the narrow, curtained window. Lifting her face from the crook of Corgan's neck she breathed deep of his musky scent, relishing the closeness, the warmth of his body next to hers.

It had been so long since she's enjoyed this level of intimacy that she'd almost forgotten it was possible to feel so complete. Even if this was all they shared she would be happy. She could do her duty this day, basking in the residual warmth of this affection. It had been too long. Likely it would be too brief as well.

Her internment on Orrax had been for a relatively minor crime. For years after leaving her home, as she struggled to find a rung on the social ladder, she'd run with the down-hab gangs. Violence and petty thuggery had been her stock-in-trade as she refused to sell her body like the other street-hussies. Sure, she'd committed crimes enough to be deported several times over but they'd never caught her. Never even bothered to try, it seemed. But she'd managed to overcome the barriers that had kept her down. She managed to save enough money to buy herself an apprenticeship working for a machine-smith, learning to tend to the Machine-God's fickle urges. She'd found a time of happiness.

After two years her master had started making unreasonable demands of her. He was a hideous man whose coin even the commonest street-girls wouldn't accept. He'd demanded 'favours' of her, in return for him providing her with a living. She'd refused. He had become more insistent with every passing day and eventually backed Lita Kierst into a corner. She'd lashed out at him. She'd bruised his ugly face. In the great city of Garganis Aquilas this was considered a grave crime.

Her deportation to Orrax was assured.

The ice-moon had been hell. She'd learned the real depths of depravity that men could stoop to. Even though every moment was a struggle for survival she'd still been hounded for her female attributes. She'd been forced to break heads aplenty, already being a woman of impressive physical stature. That was, at least, until Garrat Melanro had won her fascination.

Garrat was the only man she'd ever met who didn't look at her like she was a piece of meat. There was no lustful hunger in his eyes. She'd come willingly into his orbit if only to study this strange, distracted personality who seemed so oblivious to her sex. She hadn't really wanted anything of him. It was just that she felt safe around him.

When he'd finally deigned to notice her she'd found him to be a charming, eloquent person, educated and thoughtful. Such rare qualities in a man of the colonies. He'd welcomed her into his sphere, seeming relieved to find someone who responded to his philosophical musings rather than giving him only vain platitudes. Eventually, inevitably, they'd started an affair. She'd become Garrat's Girl but she didn't care what they called her. She was happy to have found someone who desired her not only for her anatomical parts.

Garrat had been murdered. She had taken her revenge. Her life had been otherwise empty since. But that iron-hard core of her personality, the perseverant strain that had refused to give in during her years of poverty, refused to let her end her life. She was and always had been a fighter.

The hunger had returned to the eyes of the men around her. All except for those that had come to know her through Garrat's company and these she kept close. But Corgan had been different, even from the first moment she had met him down in the cells. It had brought to mind her first meeting with Garrat and perhaps, thus unwittingly, Corgan had found a chink in her armour.

In the days that had followed his release she'd found opportunities to be around him, watching with interest. He had been somewhat aloof, or cautious perhaps. Not cold, but distracted. She thought it might be the burden of leadership in his case. He didn't wear that mantle quite as well as Garrat had. During these opportunities she'd always tried to initiate some small, personal encounter, some flick of her innate flirtatious humour that she'd kept subdued since Garrat's death.

These had been tests, of course. Little challenges to try and bring out his personality. What she saw did not meet with her disapproval.

He was a hard man. Perhaps as hard as any she'd known. But he was only so hard because everything he did was undertaken with such intensity of purpose. He couldn't go by half measures. He couldn't give in to compromise.

With a pang of sudden regret she realised that if one or the other of them died tomorrow, she would never get to see if her theories about him were right.

She decided to pray. Never a particularly religious person it wasn't something she might ordinarily have done. But the endless war that was life, it seemed, had made her superstitious.

She eased herself out of the bed, careful not to wake him, and started pulling on her breeches and vest. Carrying her boots she padded out into the corridor and headed for the sanctorum.

She would pray for all their souls.


	9. Day Sixty

**CLASSIFIED **

**OPORDER C22-5th Leg. Orrax Penitent Company HQ **

Pelloris Ridge, Fered Roathi. Date: 2-066-575-M41 

**1) Mission **

a) Infiltrate Five Rivers Delta.b) Map enemy strong-points. c) Establish contact with partisan cells within thecity.d) Locate and call in roving enemy artillery batteries for immediate precision bombardment.

**2) Execution **

a) Line units will conduct full-frontal assault at 0700 hours (2-069-575-M41.). Infiltrating units will insert behind these units and go to ground until nightfall. Line units will effect full withdrawal at this time.b) Infiltrator units must immediately call in with map-reference information of all enemy strong points and roving batteries before displacing. c) Local guides will facilitate contact with partisans.

**3) Situation **

a) The enemy is maintaining a solid front-line that consists mainly of cultists and enlisted civilians.b) Behind this line the enemy has numerous strong-points, intelligence suggests a strong likelihood of encountering Traitor Astartes here.c) The enemy is believed to be operating a curfew and may be patrolling the streets after dark.

**4) Weather **

a) Heavy mist between 0430 and 0830 will facilitate insertion. b) Visibility increases steadily from 0830 hours and is clear by 1100 hours at the latest. c) Coastal wind patterns prevail (Westerly at dawn, Easterly at dusk), can gust up to 70kph.

**5) Terrain **

a) Upper slopes of Pelloris Ridge drain into the basin to provide firm ground up until around 200-300 metres of the city limits where ground becomes boggy. b) Use of local road systems is advised only in desperate circumstances, all-terrain modifications have been made to the vehicles to allow them to traverse boggy ground.

**Thought for the day: The Light of the Emperor is your Salvation**

**

* * *

**

**0650 hours, Day 60 – Pelloris Ridge **

The Second Century stood vaguely to attention, with sleep in their eyes and hesitation in their hearts. Corgan walked down the line, memorising each face, nodding his acknowledgement of each of them. Lita's squad of seven, with craggy featured Piet, the so-called Loopy-Lunes and the effete Harrisc, who was reputedly as deadly as any Catachan with a blade. They stood ready to mount up.

Biggs was talking in low tones to his six men and barely noticed as Corgan passed by. His first command. Corgan hoped it wouldn't be his last.

Jopry's unit was next in line. He seemed too young to be a veteran of the Arbites with his fresh-faced countenance. He glared at Corgan with unveiled hostility to which Corgan didn't react. Jopry's eight and Poalan's seven had kept themselves to themselves. They hadn't made any effort to mould themselves into the unit. Corgan would be keeping them all on a tight lease out in the field.

Poalan himself maintained a bland expression at all times. He was unreadable. Corgan didn't doubt the man's ability, however. Somehow this man had managed to win over his men just as Jopry had. They were tight-knit and insular. That was rare in the Penitent Legions. It was evident from looking at the rosters that very few ex-Arbites managed to win over their men. Most ended up being shot in the back during the fighting. It took real personality to prevent that from happening. Poalan certainly bore watching.

Arines grinned with a barely concealed fervour. He'd scuffed up the glossy duraweave of his flak jacket and looked as though he'd rolled in the mud. All of his squad had done so. Corgan looked over his shoulder to see Biggs' men following suit.

'What's with the casual dress, Decurion?'

'Camouflage, sir. We'll blend in better during the day and at night we won't reflect any ambient light sources. That's the one problem with duraweave, its high-sheen…'

'Pretty canny for an ex-pen…' Corgan replied, noting that even Jopry and Poalan's men had started rubbing dirt and dust into their jackets.

'It was Darron's advice, sir.'

'Guess I'd better fall into line then…' Before he'd even finished his sentence Shopal appeared behind him, dumping a pail of dry grit over Corgan's head. He was stunned.

Shopal made himself scarce, shouting; 'It was Arines' idea! It was Arines' idea!' The rest of the company had burst into good-natured laughter. All except for Poalan and Jopry's men.

Corgan took a deep, calming breath, almost getting a lungful of dust for his trouble. He decided he'd best see the funny side.

'Well, doesn't anyone else want to throw mud in my face?' he challenged.

The laughter ebbed away. Commissar-General Draven had arrived. Corgan shook himself off and turned to face the hawk-nosed man in his tall, black cap.

'You look like you could take on the enemy all by yourself, Centurion.'

'We'll get the job done, Commissar.'

'I don't doubt it,' Draven replied, his deep baritone loud enough for all to hear. 'By tomorrow we'll be toasting your victory!'

Corgan stayed silent. This was all for the men's benefit. He knew the risks involved. He knew they were unlikely to see tomorrow at all. Fered Roathi's thirty-two hour day would see them all dead before morning.

'Mount up, Centurion. I'll be expecting to hear from you again shortly after sunset.'

'Sir!' Draven spun on his heel and made off. 'You heard the man,' Corgan bellowed. 'Mount up. On the double!'

The already famous Second Century of the Fifth Orrax Penitent boarded their specially modified transports. Manufactured on Gryphonne IV and dubbed the Dwarf Chimera by the men. These shorter-than-standard vehicles had a smaller transport capacity and souped up engines. The rear access hatch was backed up by two circular side-hatches that would allow a rapid deployment under fire. The turret-mounted multi-laser was capable of pumping out a withering hail of potent las, designed to keep the enemy ducking while the hull-mounted bolter added to the carnage.

The combined roar of the Century's six engines rose to a deafening crescendo as the vehicles moved out to join the massed column debouching onto the Delta from the heights of the Ridge. The Imperial artillery was already pounding the periphery of the city, reducing it to a blazing inferno.

North and south, the great viaducts of Tribunas and Valedictorus stabbed into the sprawling stilt-city, coming to meet at the very heart of the morass some twenty kilometres from the Ridge. These the Imperials stoically ignored in their mass, full-frontal advance, forcing the enemy to spread their counter-bombardment over a front thirty kilometres wide.

The heretics still scored kills. Many tanks were merely disabled, meaning their passengers had to continue on foot or climb up onto the hulls of vehicles following behind them. Others were hit dead on and exploded in clouds of flaming promethium and shrapnel, belching black smoke into the atmosphere to mingle with the thick mist that had not yet dissipated.

But yet the Imperials advanced headlong and at speed, while they still had firm ground to traverse. They slowed only when they found the muddy extremities of the city. Here the amphibious nature of the Chimera troop transport came into play. Many of the vehicles simply ploughed into the widening watercourses, losing some of their manoeuvrability but none of their speed. Others deployed a specially designed track component, long, adamantium spikes that allowed the transport to maintain some traction even on boggy ground.

The Orrax Legions could not be stopped. The enemy, frothing mad in their insanity, stood their ground to the last and the Imperial wave crashed over them. The tsunami of men swamped their battle-lines, emerging from the mists to pierce it through with a thousand armoured spearheads. Heretics died by the hundreds, crushed, mashed, blown apart. Traitor Astartes rose around them, spitting death that even the armoured cars could not always deflect. Ultimately even these could not withstand the shock-wave. The enemy's front line devolved into a hundred islands of resistance, bypassed and to a large extent ignored by the oncoming Imperials who only slowed as they reached the built-up areas that had not yet been subjected to concentrated bombardment.

As they reached the way-mark laid out in their briefings, the hatches sprang open. Corgan's men disembarked and melted swiftly into the partially ruinous architecture of Five Rivers. North and south men of the Sixth and Seventh Legions followed suit. Even as the infantry cleared the roads their vehicles maxed out again, automated hydraulics squeezing the hatches shut as they accelerated to top speed once more.

The Imperial drivers had been drilled to perfection. Each of them was the result of a massive investment of time and resources on the part of Draven's command staff. Their next manoeuvre was critical. Their next manoeuvre would have been called suicidal.

The armoured spears that had pierced the flank of the city curled around on themselves, turning about to make a fast and organised retreat. Keeping left on the narrow streets the spears converged, tanks squeezing past each other, sometimes by margins of mere inches and at such high velocity that to veer but a little would spell disaster. Not one collision occurred during that deadly game of chicken. The drivers would be lauded for their skills and awarded the highest commendations should they manage to survive the return to the Ridge.

And this was by no means assured. The enemy units on the front line had swiftly called for aid when their lines were smashed aside. The reserve forces garrisoned some way behind this line were quickly mustered. Even as the columns converged and went into retreat the chase was on. The tail-enders found themselves in a race for dear life.

Likewise, as the islands of resistance on the front line saw the Imperials heading back they redoubled their fire. Chimeras shivered and tore apart in the concentrated enfilading fire. One brave but unhinged driver veered from the road to crash through a smouldering ruin, bringing his vehicle to bear on a rockcrete pillbox that was taking a heavy toll on the Imperial column. He jammed his foot to the accelerator and screamed his final battle-cry before his vehicle ploughed into the ruptured bunker, exploding in a massive fireball.

Scores of wrecks littered the outer reached of the Delta after that suicidal charge. Hundreds of men lost their lives. But the enemy were set to reeling, their defensive lines mocked by the apparent ease with which it had failed. So it was that the men of Corgan's unit, along with those of the other Legions that had donned the slouch cap that day, were passed by unnoticed in the rush to reinforce the perimeter.

Draven rallied his Legions on the upper slopes of the Ridge and stood tall in the turret of his tank to survey what he had brought about. It seemed to him that the city of Five Rivers teetered on the brink of destruction. He was saddened by the havoc he had been forced to bring down on the once fine and civilised metropolis. But he was greatly heartened by the scurrying he saw. The Great Enemy had learned a valuable lesson this day.

The men of Orrax were not to be underestimated.

xxx

**0720 hours – Latitude 357.220, Outskirts of Five Rivers **

Corgan bailed out, his men scattering behind him as they delved into the twisted ruin of a habitation block levelled in a previous bombardment. The Chimera transports fired off and away leaving them to go to ground.

Corgan saw Jopry's squad just behind his own. Somewhere to the North Lita and Poalan would be bailing out and likewise Arines and Biggs to the south. The still-thick mist covered their debarkation, but they would have to find a hiding place soon before enemy reserves moved up.

Other than the echoing roar of the armoured columns behind them the cityscape seemed deserted, silent as the grave. The citizens had long since abandoned these outer habs or had been relocated by the enemy.

Corgan looked to Olanska Vedri, their guide on this little excursion. The Five Rivers man was swarthy in appearance and scarred inside and out by his weeks of fighting the Chaos scum.

The guide motioned in the direction he wanted them to take and the squad headed off in absolute silence. Their harnesses were cinched tight. All metallic gear was bound up in rags to prevent it from betraying their presence. In their dark webbing and flak jackets they blended well with the shadow-haunted ruins.

Vedri dashed ahead of them, ducking into a narrow alleyway. He found a door into a more stable building and waved Corgan and his men through.

'Quickly, we can hide in the basement levels until the heat dies down,' he drawled in his thickly accented tones.

Down three levels they went. The walls were slick with moisture. Mould grew in repulsive polyps on the walls, glowing with fluorescent vitality. The floor of the third sub-level was ankle-deep with dark, stagnant water.

'The pumps have not been activated for weeks.' Vedri elaborated. 'Usually all this is pumped out into the sewer system to drain into the sea.'

Corgan identified two other stairwells letting into the basement and stationed men to guard them.

'Anyone that doesn't give the proper response dies,' were his orders. The partisans used a variety of codes to identify neighbouring cells. Olanska Vedri was party to most of them.

Jopry sloshed over, a look of distaste on his face.

'What now, Centurion?'

'You know what,' Corgan replied. 'We wait. Dusk is at roughly 2130 hours. We hole up here until then.'

It was not going to be the most comfortable sixteen hours they'd experienced, but these men had survived the rigours of Orrax. A little bit of stinking water wasn't going to kill them.

xxx

**2100 hours – Latitude 357.217, Outskirts of Five Rivers **

'What's your problem, Poalan?' Lita hissed.

'What's yours, bitch?'

Lita clenched her fists. Poalan was really starting to push her too far, but to strike a fellow NCO would not be the best example to set for the men, even if they were of the ex-pen variety.

'Corgan said we didn't move until 2130, so what are you doing?'

'I'm going to take a look around. I'm sick of sitting around waiting.'

Lita clenched her teeth and her fists. She'd been given command over this arm of the Century. Poalan apparently didn't give two hoots about that. To him, Lita was just an upstart convict.

'If you give away our location I'll skin you myself…'

Poalan winked at her. He winked! Lita could have smacked him in the mouth just for that. He moved away, waving his squad after him. Lita caught a few glares from them too and wondered for the umpteenth time why they followed that man.

She sat back. Lunes scuffled over.

'You want me to tag him?'

'Not here. His men would turn on us anyways. We'll just follow our orders and hope we never see him again.'

Lita sat and stewed until 2130 hours came around. Then she got her men geared up and headed up to the surface. She wished there'd been enough locals available to provide her with a guide, but beggars could not be choosers. Too bad. They'd live with it.

Reaching topside they scanned for any sign of Poalan's bunch. Daylight was fading fast. There was no sign.

'Head due east,' she hissed. 'Keep your eyes peeled.'

They delved into a network of concrete stilt-raised structures. The smell of the bogs below invading their senses once more. The sound of far-off bombardment broke through the apprehensive silence.

'Down!' hissed Lunes, spotting movement up ahead.

'What is it?'

'Enemy patrol.'

'Take them out, they might have sniffer-canids. We can't risk letting them go…' Lita whispered back, anxiously.

Piet, Harrisc and Lunes moved forward, keeping low and keeping quiet. Lita saw the bobbing head of an enemy trooper, his morbid features relaxed. Another walked behind him, struggling with something.

She heard the distinctive spit of Lunes' rifle and those of the other two. In seconds they were out in the open dragging three limp forms back into the shadowy recess from which they'd sprung.

'Good call, Lita. They had a sniffer,' Piet remarked, prodding the dead hound at his feet. Lita wouldn't relish taking a bite from one of these crazed blood-hounds. There was no knowing what they carried in their yellowing saliva.

'Keep moving,' she ordered, and the squad continued on. Lunes took point. He worked his way up ahead of them cautiously, keeping his eyes peeled for more patrols. It wasn't long before he was waving them up behind him.

'Looks like a support battery. They're displacing.'

'Right. Piet, call it in. Give him the map reference, Lunes, you're better at it than I am.' Lita shuffled down into a position to watch. The enemy were clustered around a bevy of blunt-nosed guns, oriented to fire up at the ridge. The enemy had been shelling sporadically since they lost the high ground, though not in any serious way. Their shelling was designed more to discourage further raids than to inflict any real damage.

'It's coming in, keep your heads down,' Lunes announced as loudly as he dared. The squad pulled back a short distance and took cover under a long, sturdy looking balcony, beneath which had been shoved great heaps of rubble created by previous rounds of bombardment.

Seconds passed. Lita hardly dared to breathe, watching the enemy dismantle their stabilizer struts in order to move the guns. But she was not to be disappointed. Before long the whistle of incoming shells gathered to a crescendo. The battery erupted in flame and shrapnel. It was quite a show.

Heretics ran for cover but they were too late. The Imperial gunnery crews were too well drilled and their guidance too well given for any to survive that concentrated salvo.

But Lita's relief was short-lived. As Lunes stood and fisted the air in exultant enjoyment of what he had wrought, blood misted from the top of his head . A solid-slug had hit him from behind, scalping him. He was only saved by his own erratic movement. Piet turned and let loose a solid volley of near-silent bullets but was torn apart by at least three more silent shots, his flak armour failing to protect him against the hard rounds.

'MOVE!' Lita screamed, letting off a volley of her own as she ducked behind cover, desperately trying to see who it was that was shooting at them. Gunder went down, twitching spasmodically, stitched with hostile fire. Opus lost his arm to a full-auto salvo and lay screaming, his life blood spurting from the ragged stump.

Lita stifled another scream, incoherent with rage. She fired blind at where she thought the shooting was coming from but there was no flash to betray their location.

Lunes was back on his feet and dived into cover beside her.

'That's our own men, shooting at us,' he gasped, 'It must be Poalan. We've got to get word to Corgan.'

At least one of them was thinking clearly. Even with his scalp hanging in bloody tatters he had kept his senses about him. Lunes would make a good squad leader if they got out of this alive. Lita experienced a moment of shame that she'd lost her head.

'Piet's down,'

'You get the set, I'll cover you,' he cried, gathering himself ready for the surge. 'GO!'

Lita shrugged off the guilt and moved, firing from the hip, heading straight for Piet's limp corpse. She gathered him up whole and ran towards the gaping doorway of the building where others of her squad had managed to hole up.

Meanwhile, Lunes was living up to his nickname. The Loon was charging headlong into enemy fire. Blood started from multiple wounds to his torso, his left shoulder near-disintegrated in a shower of gore but still he came on, firing his rifle with one arm braced against the recoil. By the time he reached the enemy's cover he was a red daemon, screaming with pain and baresark fury.

Lita saw their enemy. Poalan himself rose up from the cover to club Lunes to death with the butt of his rifle. The loss numbed her to the core, rendering her unable to vent the mounting fury building up inside her.

He would pay.

**2133 hours – Latitude 357.220 **

Corgan replaced the phones, his face a mask. He turned, ignoring Wheln's anxious query and headed toward Jopry.

The ex-Arbites was not expecting to be back-handed to the floor, his rifle skittered away. Instantly Corgan's men had their weapons trained on Jopry's. Some of them lowered their guns and raised their hands, others showed a little more nerve by pointing theirs at Corgan.

'Poalan just wasted half of Lita's team,' said Corgan, his tones colder than Orrax's year-long winter.

Jopry held up his hands.

'I don't know anything about it, I swear.'

Corgan kicked him in the ribs, seemingly unconcerned that there were three rifles trained on him. For him the rest of Jopry's squad didn't figure in this little confrontation.

'Sir, what are we going to do?' asked Wheln, an edge of panic in his voice.

Corgan turned away from Jopry. The man was either telling the truth or he was a damned good liar.

'Darron, you've got the squad. Follow Jopry's lead until he leads you astray, in which case you have my permission to slit his throat. I'm going to find Poalan and put a bullet through his eye. I'll catch up with you at the rendezvous…'

xxx

**2150 hours – Latitude 357.217 **

He found the bodies easily enough. But all around him was silence. He recognised Piet and Gunder. The other two might be Opus and Lunes but the former was so covered in blood as to be unrecognisable and there wasn't much left of Lunes at all. He gathered up the tags as he inspected the bodies, dropping them into a pouch on his webbing.

He could hear no shooting but Lita and the rest of her squad had to be around here somewhere. They must have been driven off. Scouting around he found another corpse. Harrisc. He'd been taken down from behind. Corgan was about to set off in the direction he appeared to have been going when he sensed a presence looming up behind him.

He spun.

Hands like hams grabbed at his gun, wrenching it from his grip.

He went for his sidearm, a silenced autopistol, only for it to be batted out of his grasp.

He staggered back, hand numbed by the force of the blow.

Roarke towered over him.

The massive Catachan grinned malevolently, taking out the blade that Corgan had put through his right hand.

'No one to save you this time, little flea!' he said with an edge of dour mirth.

Corgan drew his own knife, the one he'd taken from Roarke the other night.

'So you've come back to get this, eh?' he grinned, refusing to show the sudden welling up of despair he experienced. Even with Roarke fighting left-handed he was no match for the Catachan with a blade.

'Come and get it!'


	10. Of Betrayal and Vengence

_Chapter reworked after receipt of useful comments. Thanks Ronnie!_

**

* * *

****2210 hours – Latitude 357.223, Interior of Five Rivers **

'Have we heard anything else?'

Biggs shook his head. Arines sighed in frustration.

'Corgan took off and no one's heard from him since.'

'And still nothing from Lita?'

'Or Poalan for that matter.'

'Hardly surprising.' Arines snorted, 'I knew that guy was trouble from the moment I laid eyes on him. What about Jopry?'

'He's continued on mission. Marked up a couple of enemy strong points. Called in a roving battery. Darron's keeping a close eye on him.'

'Okay. Well there's nothing we can do but keep on going.' Arines pulled a map out of the pouch in his webbing and laid it out in front of them. 'So, we're here…' he said, jabbing his finger at a point on the map. 'Jopry's about two kliks north of us…'

'He's marked up strong points here… and here!' Biggs indicated the co-ordinates from memory. Arines marked them up with his stylus.

'So, he's moving toward us?'

'Affirmative.'

'Right. So we keep heading due east, north of the strong point your boys just spotted. There should be plenty of cover.'

'Gotcha! We'll take point.'

'Keep your eyes peeled for partisans. You know the watch-code?'

'I know the proper responses.'

'Good. Throne be with you!'

Biggs shifted right, hooked up with his team and gave a few curt gestures. They fanned out, resuming their visual scanning. They crossed the road and melted into the ramshackle alleyways opposite.

Arines circled his men around him and followed. He had a very bad feeling. It had been getting steadily worse for the last forty minutes or so. He'd been looking forward to this gig. Stealth work was his childhood fantasy. Tooled up to the nines with all sorts of freaky little toys, bootblack on his cheeks and an enemy that wasn't expecting him. But he was a grown man now. He'd seen combat. Death. He knew the risks were high and the stakes higher. The actions of the men beside him might determine the course of the battle to come. If some of those men took it upon themselves to turn on their friends, they were in a deeper pile of crap that they'd ever suspected.

It made him want to curse, louder than was advisable.

xxx

**2212 hours – Latitude 357.217 **

Corgan was predominantly a gunfighter. He was quick on the draw, ambidextrous and keen eyed. He could take down six moving targets in three seconds while on the move himself. He knew because he'd done it. More than once. It had been the secret of his success in the Underhive.

Roarke was with a knife what Corgan was with a brace of pistols. Lightning reflexes, fearless, strong as an ox and as hard has volcanic crystal. Even with the puny little shaving knife he was a deadly prospect. Corgan may have a slight advantage in speed and agility, but Roarke's strength and skill far outmatched his own. Even with Roarke fighting left-handed he knew he was going to be hard pressed to survive this encounter.

Roarke obviously wasn't there to talk. He just grinned maniacally and lunged. Corgan managed to side-step away, narrowly deflecting the man's thrust. They circled. Corgan waited. Roarke tested him again. Corgan twisted aside, catching the man's knife-hilt on his own. The man's formidable strength pushed him back. He almost lost his balance, tripping over scattered rubble. Roarke pressed his advantage without hesitation but had Corgan recovered in time to dart out and back in again, scoring the big man's ribs as he followed through and spun away once more.

Roarke roared in rage as he turned, landing a flurry of blows that Corgan was hard-pressed to deflect. Driven back and back again, up onto a low kerb and against a wall. Red mist started to fill Corgan's vision and a hot rage concentrated itself in his rapid movements, lending him an energy not his own.

Roarke got through, slashing his face. It was a shallow cut, designed to annoy rather than to cause any real damage. It was payback for the slash to his ribs. Blood poured down Corgan's cheek and into the neckline of his jacket, hot and sticky. The pain only spurred him on. Another shallow wound appeared across his left biceps, a slash he hadn't even seen, it was delivered that fast. More blood, more pain to fuel Corgan's anger.

He caught Roarke's knife and thrust it away with all his strength, using the wall for leverage. He found an opening but not for his knife. His forehead smashed into Roarke's face. The bigger man reared back, roaring in pain, blood spurting from his crushed nose.

He recovered quickly and stood ready once more.

'Did you like that?' Corgan growled, breathing heavily now.

'Not as much as I'm going to like cutting off your head with this potato peeler,' Roarke replied.

With a mighty battle-cry he fell to it again, if anything more focused and coordinated than before. It was as though Corgan's last move had awoken some sense of caution in the man, forcing him to bring all his skill to bear. Another shallow wound opened up on Corgan's thigh. It wasn't too bad but Corgan was aware that just a few more like it would see him starting to lose more blood that he could afford to. He had to find an opening and soon…

xxx

**2224 hours – Latitude 357.223 **

The Administratum complex was a baroque edifice of gargantuan proportions. Squatting in the centre of the delta city like some calcified behemoth surrounded by its scattered playthings, a toy-town collection of variegated structures, none of which compared to the Administratum hub. Biggs had to admit to being more than a little overawed by the sight of that massive central spire with four sub-spines branching off it. It hadn't been half so imposing looking down at it from the Ridge. He stood staring at it in slack-jawed wonderment, which seemed to amuse his men no end.

'What you sniggering at, trooper?'

'Your face, sarge,' replied Hicks.

'Cheeky bastard. Can I help it if I've never seen anything so huge? Not this close up anyway. And where do you even start with a place that big, anyway?'

'Usually at the bottom, boss,' Orlando cut in.

'You're a funny guy...' Biggs bit back, snidely.

Biggs' squad-mates had taken to calling him the _yokel_ behind his back. He'd overheard them using it earlier in the day. He supposed it was because of his countrified upbringing. All he'd ever known and loved were the Charwood forests of his home on Wheylan 2076. He was out of his depth in the city, even a comparatively small one like this. He supposed most of his lads had grown up within spitting distance of buildings like this so he let them have their joke at his expense. It was character building.

Trooper Torrk pointed up at the buildings fascia.

'Look what they've done to the aquila...'

By some impossible enterprise the cultists and their masters had contrived to invert the massive brazen eagle. It swung haplessly upside-down in the onshore breeze.

'Bastards!' hissed Fullar.

'You say this is the source of that jamming transmission you picked up?' asked Biggs.

'No doubt, sarge. That's where it's coming from. I can see the communications spire from here. That's the only thing powerful enough to jam our vox at this range.'

Fullar had been a vox-technician in his former life, working in some hive or other on this backwater world or the next. Biggs only knew that his crimes were something to do with his trade. The Tech-priests were jealous of their secrets.

Nevertheless, Fullar had made all kinds of funky modifications to his set, giving it a number or added features they'd been finding useful. That was until ten minutes ago, at least. Ten minutes ago his set had stopped working. All he was getting now was white noise. The enemy was putting out some kind of jamming signal that Fullar had been unable to work around, and that was bad news.

'Then that's where we have to go, then!' Biggs asserted.

'You've got to be kidding sarge!' There's no way we could get in and out of that place undetected. They'll have it locked down tighter than a sororitas dormitory!'

'I don't give a shit, Hicks. The success of this mission and our lives depend upon us being able to communicate our findings to HQ. Until we can do that we're dead anyway. We may as well spend what time we have left trying to ensure that some of our compatriots up on the ridge have a chance of succeeding tomorrow. Fullar, go tell Arines... we're going in.'

'Cheer up, Hicks,' Orlando jabbed his friend in the ribs. 'Every man's got to die sooner or later...'

'Yeah, well I prefer later...'

xxx

**2226 hours – Latitude 357.217 **

The two titans faced off over the rubble-strewn battle-ground that they had made their own. Corgan bled from at least ten slash or stab wounds, none of which had hurt him enough to debilitate him other than through blood-loss but this in itself was slowing him down. Roarke's nose had stopped bleeding but a shallow cut over his right eye was still seeping. He had to shake the blood from his eyelashes every so often to stop it blinding him. He was breathing as heavily as Corgan and his earlier onslaught had really taken it out of him.

They been sparring for what seemed like hours, but the better bladesman had not been able to break Corgan's defence decisively enough to finish the job. Corgan's preternatural reflexes and defensive stance had saved him time and again. But it hadn't afforded him a means of counter-attack.

In the meantime a grim sense of amusement had crept over him, stifling his rage. He had started to gurgle with laughter every time they crossed blades. Roarke was ignoring him, not even bothering to try and come up with a witty retort, but it was obviously winding him up.

'Sod this,' Corgan chortled. 'I really can't be bothered any more…' he turned and started to stagger away.

'Come back, you bastard!'

'Frak you!'

Roarke let slip an elemental howl of rage and gathered himself up with his last reserves of animal strength. His rage had finally boiled over, scalding him to his very core. He charged. Corgan heard him bearing down and, judging his own reserves to perfection, leapt aside just at the last second. Roarke steamed past, missing his mark entirely.

Corgan bunched… and released… his blade cart-wheeled through the air and buried itself to the hilt on Roarke back, just below the left shoulder blade. He went down heavily, hacking and spluttering, vomiting blood as his lungs flooded.

Corgan had been moving towards his pistol and flipped it up into the air with one foot to catch it expertly in his right hand. He stalked over, loomed above the dying Catachan. Roarke was desperately trying to regain his feet. He managed to get to his hands and knees but couldn't rise any further.

'You Catachans'll never stop, will you?' Corgan gasped. 'Then again, I suppose none of you have ever lived long enough to learn that particular lesson.'

He took careful aim, putting two bullets in Roarke's brain. Another went through his heart and, just because you could never be too sure, he put one through each ankle too.

That done, he looked vaguely about, trying to get his bearings. Lita and the rest of her boys were still out here somewhere. He had to find them.

xxx

**2229 hours – Latitude 357.223, somewhere inside the Administratum Complex**

'Quit griping. There's no going back now whether you like it or not.'

Hicks scowled but bit his tongue. His complaining had nearly given away their presence to a corridor patrol only moments before. They'd been hard pressed to silence them all as it was, without losing the element of surprise because one trooper couldn't trap his jaw. Hicks had gotten his just deserts in the form of a long, shallow slice across his thigh.

'You're a lucky bastard,' Orlando grinned as he helped Hicks to bind the wound. 'An inch higher and deeper and you'd have bled out by now. You wouldn't even have had time to worry about you sudden lack of gonads!'

'Thanks, buddy!' Hicks sniped.

'I'm serious, you two, cut the frakking chatter or I'll castrate you both myself!' Biggs hissed, with menace in his ice-blue eyes.

They shut up, but Orlando's mirth was written plain across his face. Biggs motioned them all into a rumbling chamber that housed a myriad web of conduit, pipes and tanks. Some kind of pump room, filled with valve mechanisms, pressure dials and heat gauges. The noise of the rattling pipes would cover their conference.

'Okay so I know nothing about how a building like this operates, but I know this much... we need a diversion. Can anyone think of a way we can cause some kind of major distraction?'

Orlando held up a hand.

'We could blow one of the reactors. A place like this'll have more than one, so it wouldn't affect them in any long-term way, but would give them an itch to scratch.'

'Okay, and you would know how to do that?'

'Assuredly, sarge.'

'Alright then.' Biggs reached into his pack and took out a package wadded in vizzy cloth. Unwrapping it he split the contents two ways, putting four small but lethal explosive charges in Orlando's hands. The rest he re-wrapped and put back into his pack. Command had given packages like these out to key personnel just prior to departure in case the appropriate opportunities afforded themselves. 'Will that be enough to do it with?'

Orlando paused for thought.

'I reckon it's possible,' he said, finally.

'So, take Hicks, Torrk and Gin with you. Find a generator and blow it. Once that's done you can get the hell out of this place and make for the rendezvous. We'll use the diversion to knock out the communications tower. Got it?'

'Right, what time will you be wanting this diversion?'

'Give us an hour. We'll improvise if necessary.'

'Sounds like a walk in the woods, sarge!' Orlando quipped.

'Not like any woods I've ever been in. Good luck!'

xxx

Agostus Kionas, Demagogue of the Word Bearers' Third Enclave, did not like much in this universe. He liked the reports he had been getting during the last hour even less.

The seemingly sporadic Imperial bombardment had completely wiped out at least seven mobile batteries. This struck him as an impossible coincidence but none of the patrols had reported any breach of curfew. Then again, a coincidentally high number of his patrols hadn't checked in at all.

He strongly suspected that the partisan rebels had found a way to collude with the Imperials up on the ridge. Either that or the morning raid had been but a smokescreen to allow infiltrator units access to the city proper.

Either possibility was intolerable. The Imperials would pay direly for their impudence.

As a counter-measure he had ordered the puling tech-adepts to blanket the city with white noise. Whoever it was that was directing the Imperial bombardment would be stranded without a way to call in. In the meantime, his own units would conduct a thorough search of the city. It was true that his own men would be as isolated as the Imperials, but he reasoned they would retain the psychological edge as the Imperials floundered for a solution.

He had called the blade-keepers to him. These were the men that carried out the ritual mutilation of their devotees, festooned with hooked blades and decorated in as macabre a way as any of their underlings. Despite appearances they were not the sharpest tools at Kionas' disposal, but that did not matter when he had a hundred thousand of them to call upon.

Kionas tightened his grip on his accursed crozius. It vibrated as though it had a life and blood-lust all of its own.

'We have been infiltrated.' he intoned. 'Find the Imperial scum and their allies. Bring the ring-leaders to me. You may kill the rest!'

Despite his role as a preacher, Kionas had always believed in speaking to the point. Others may embellish their words as they wished, but not him. The Truth was too important to be bundled up in rhetoric.

The Truth was the light that would one day illuminate the universe. Just as Erebus himself had always intended it!

xxx

**2239 hours – Latitude 357.223, Administratum Energy Distribution Complex**

Orlando set the last charge himself, concealing it as best he could between the pipes that fed coolant into the reactor's vast metal jacket. Hicks sidled up alongside him with his autogun cradled in front of him. He was limping slightly, favouring the leg that was unharmed, but it no longer seemed to be giving him much trouble. He was probably just being melodramatic, it wouldn't be the first time.

'We done?' he asked.

'We've done what we can,' Orlando replied, running over the four charges they'd set in his head.

The first two had been placed on both the main pressure release valve and the emergency fail-safe. The reactor's inability to vent any excess pressure would start it on the road to overloading, but if it was running at efficiency that on its own could take days.

Luckily Orlando knew a thing or two about the machine spirits. He'd closed off the exchanger unit and set another charge on the valve that operated it. The generator would continue to function, building up energy that no longer had anyhere to go. The resultant pressure build-up within the reactor would cause it to go into meltdown within a couple of hours.

He knew that was still too long, so he'd identified the coolant system. If that failed, it was a sure catalyst for terminal meltdown. The charges themselves would never be enough to cause the reactor to blow instantaneously, but they were placed in such a way as to deny anyone a chance at preventing the reactor from reaching critical mass.

'How do you know all this shit anyhow?' Hicks had asked when he'd gone over the details.

'I used to work with mass-reactors similar to this. They're designed to be indestructible, to contain the plasma core at all costs, but you'd be amazed at how easy it is to turn that indestructibility into a weapon that can level entire city blocks.'

'We will be able to get out, right?'

'Don't worry, man, we'll have plenty of time. It'll take at least half an hour to go up once the charges detonate, we'll be long gone by then'

Hicks didn't look convinced.

'Never fear, I do good work. C'mon let's split'

xxx

**2314 hours – Latitude 357.274, Administratum Communications Sub-Spire**

The Administratum's communication spine was located at the top of the northern arm, connected to the spire-hub by a multitude of suspended causeways. The traffic was such that Biggs and his men found it easy to blend in, especially after acquiring some concealing tech-apprentice robes to conceal their war-gear. Unfortunately, although the spine was easy to find, the reason for this was that it was bustling with activity. They would be hard pressed to penetrate very far before their disguises were compromised.

Once within the spine, they circled the peripheral corridors, scoping out the territory. Military personnel were crawling all over it, fairly inactive, but still armed and alert. They'd set up a guarded perimeter that Biggs, Fullar and Cotaz would have to find a way to bypass if they were to succeed in their mission.

They found a suitable hiding hole in the form of a janitor's closet, filled with the rusting and abandoned paraphernalia that would once have kept an army of cleaning servitors in work.

'This is not going to be easy,' Biggs observed.

'But we knew that, didn't we?' asked Fullar, sitting down to fiddle with the dials on his equipment.

'I'm no less worried for knowing that.'

'Relax,' said Cotaz, a burly, craggy faced brawler. 'We've still got half an hour before the reactor goes to hell. If they've even found it yet...'

Cotaz's words were like prophecy. The floor and walls suddenly began to vibrate around them, rattling the archaic equipment, upsetting pails of spare parts and shaking the dust loose from the flame-retardant ceiling tiles. Biggs knew in his bones that this was the transmitted shock-wave of a colossal explosion in an adjacent sub-spire.

'Half an hour early,' he said, as the alert klaxons began to wail and the tramp of heavy boots rose in the corridor outside. 'I hope they got out in time!'

xxx

**2240 hours – Latitude 357.223, Administratum Energy Distribution Complex**

Torrk had been leading the way out when he was ripped apart by a hail of bullets. The dimly lit maintenance access corridor had been deathly quiet until that moment, the four infiltrators advancing as quickly as they dared while still trying to go quietly. That plan was shot all to hell now.

Hicks dived into cover behind a bulkhead as more shots rang out. He dragged Orlando in beside him even as Gin took a bullet to the leg. He screamed and more shots ploughed into him.

'We're rumbled, man!' Hicks whimpered.

'Come on, double back. With any luck they don't know how many of us are in here.' Orlando hissed back, pulling the panicked trooper behind him as he made a run for it.

Gin's screaming was cut short with a gurgling cry that was followed up with the victorious cry of some deranged cultist. Heavy footsteps, enough to belong to a whole patrol, echoed down the corridor.

'Hell, we might still get out of here if we're lucky,' Hicks gasped.

Orlando was distracted by his own reflections. In a few scant seconds his entire life seemed to play before his eyes in disjointed chunks. He grinned. Reflection was, it seemed, the eternal curse of the penitent. They were incarcerated in order that a lesson be learned, not by rote, but through the arduous and often painful process of self-analysis. Orlando couldn't help but be amused by the irony of his current predicament.

He came around to himself quickly, grabbing Hicks by the arm to bring him up short.

'I was deported to Orrax for dereliction of duty,' he said. 'I'm not going to make the same mistake again.'

'What are you talking about?'

'These guys are deranged, but their not stupid. They could put two and two together and work out why we were down here. I can't let them prevent those charges from going off. The whole operation could be at stake if they do...'

'So what are you saying, you're not making sense, Orlando!' There was desperation in Hicks' eyes.

'This about more than just your life and mine, brother. We have to take responsibility for the lives that might be lost if our boys are unable to feed the right intel back up the HQ before the morning assault. We have a job to do, and I for one am not going to leave it to chance.'

'Screw that, man, I'm getting the hell out of here.'

'No you're not. I'm gonna blow this place sky high long before you can get anywhere near clear of the blast zone. But you could spend what time you have left helping me to do what I have to do...'

'Aw shit!' Hicks was crying now, real tears stood out in his eyes. 'You can't be serious...'

'I'm deadly serious, man. I've never been so serious in my life. And we don't have time to stand here debating it. If you want to help, draw their attention long enough for me to reset the charges and if you want a chance at survival my advice is to head down. The floors are sturdier than the walls because of all the weight they have to support.'

He held a hand out to his friend. Hicks shook it wordlessly, shell-shocked.

'I'll see you in the after-life,' Orlando grinned, before turning and making off, heading back up the way they had come.

Hicks swore again and wrung his hands around the stock of his rifle.

'Join the Guard, they said. It's better than freezing your butt off, they said. Yeah right, like getting your ass _blown_ off is any better...'

xxx

Orlando double timed it back to the reactor chamber and set about methodically resetting the charges. In three minutes time the charges would detonate, sending the reactor into an upward spiral that would result in the biggest explosion Orlando had ever been the direct cause of. He sat back and considered that irony again. He had been deported because the dereliction of his responsibilities had resulted in a massive overload of a similar reactor. The death-toll had been magnificently huge. What he was doing now as his final act of deliverance amounted to much the same thing, but with deliberate intent.

In just three minutes he would find out if his last gamble would be enough to buy him a ticket to the Emperor's after-life party.


	11. The Staggering

**2317 hours – Administratum Communications Sub-Spire**

The distraction proved its worth almost immediately. Orlando's last gambit was like pouring hot water into a wasp's nest. The inhabitants began to swarm haphazardly, knocking into each other in a furore of panic and fear. Biggs waited scant minutes before waving the others out of the closet behind him.

'Look out for any signs that seem promising!'

'Like that one, maybe?' asked Fullar.

The intersection they'd emerged into was well sign-posted. The right hand corridor led in the direction of the Astropathicus Majoris, while the left hand indicated the existence of the dining halls and general amenities. Another sign pointed off dead ahead, denoting in bold letters the direction in which the Vox Terminus could be found.

'That'll probably do the trick,' Biggs nodded. 'Keep your shooters handy...'

They started off, quickly becoming enveloped in the massing crowds of orderlies, tech-priests, servitors and apprentices. Soldiers were thinner on the ground, called away to establish a search pattern for saboteurs in the adjacent wing of the complex. Biggs was starting to think this job could be easier than expected, but he knew better.

The going was fairly slow. It proved difficult to keep in touch with Fullar and Cotaz in the maelstrom of human traffic. The noise around them was stupendous, a storm of incoherent shouting, much of it in a local dialect that Biggs was entirely unfamiliar with. They struggled on. It couldn't be much further.

Suddenly the corridor ahead filled with red body-armour and the tramp of military-issue boots. Steel-masked troopers in full battle-gear filtered from a side-passage and took up positions flanking the massive portal that marked the entrance to the Vox Terminus.

Biggs stopped short. Fullar nudged up behind him.

'What do we do now,' he hissed, as they watched the soldiers being ordered around by a big man adorned with numerous hooked blades. There was maybe a dozen of them, heavily armed and looking like they meant business.

'I don't know,' Biggs replied, momentarily at a loss. The soldiers had started checking the identities of anyone wanting to access the Terminus. There was no way their disguises would hold up.

'Can you rig the charges to go off quickly?' asked Cotaz.

Biggs nodded, wondering what the man was thinking while paradoxically knowing exactly what his intentions were.

'I have a palm-trigger.'

'Arm them and give them to me. I'll need some covering fire to get through the door, but once that's done you may as well make yourself scarce. I'll take care of the rest.'

'Are you insane?'

Cotaz just grinned, the light of madness in his eyes.

'I've been told I am!'

Fullar grabbed Cotaz by the shoulder.

'You don't know what to look for. I'm coming with you.'

'If you're going too, we all go,' Biggs put in, but Fullar shook his head.

'Like the man said, we'll need some covering fire to make sure we get through. This is the best place from which to provide it. You can keep them off our backs and you may even draw some of them off while you make your escape.'

Biggs looked from one face to the next, seeing the cold determination in Fullar's elfin features and the nervous energy of Cotaz's derangement. They were serious and Biggs knew Fullar was right on the money. He realised that war called for sacrifices to be made, but Biggs had never expected to see any penal legionary walk willingly into the jaws of certain death. He asked himself if he would have done it. He wasn't half so sure of it as these two seemed to be.

'Corgan's gonna be pissed...' he muttered, with a certain maniacal hysteria causing his hands and knees to shake. 'My first command and I go and get all my boys killed.'

'Just make sure we get those medals he promised us, sir!' Cotaz grunted. Biggs nearly lost control of the urge to laugh out loud. Even in this crowd they couldn't afford it.

'We stand still much longer and we're gonna start attracting a lot of attention,' Fullar observed. 'Let's get this done!'

'Alright, you crazy bastards, get going,' said Biggs as he handed over the sack of charges. He'd armed them earlier, knowing that they might not get time later and being willing to take the risk of them going off prematurely. All that was required now was to connect the detonator. Cotaz claimed to be able to do it and Biggs believed him. The big man slung the sack over his shoulder and racked the slide on his rifle, which was still concealed beneath his voluminous robes. Fullar handed over his pack, containing his precious vox-caster. Biggs slung it over his shoulders.

'I'll open fire a second before they stop you,' said Biggs. 'You should be able to slip through without drawing too much attention. I'll draw as many as I can after me. The Emperor protects!'

Cotaz threw him a glance that posed the question: _does he?_, then set off with Fullar at his shoulder.

_This is insane,_ Biggs thought to himself as he prepared his sub. He suddenly wished he been paying closer attention to his surroundings on the way here. He had no idea what his exit strategy was going to be. Country boy was lost in the big city.

Cotaz was nearly at the door. Biggs sprang into action, throwing off his bulky robes and bringing up his rifle. With an incoherent battle-cry he opened up, the dull, spitting sound of his rifle subsumed by his roar of sudden frenzy, fuelled by his frustration and anger. Two of the soldiers were standing too close to one another. They went down in a spray of small-calibre rounds, blood spraying the walls. The others reacted quickly, diving for cover as the rest of the corridor's occupants started to scream and run, clearing a space around the maniacal gunman in the process.

Bullets and las-rounds started coming his way, but they were purely reactionary and missed him completely. He ducked into a side-corridor, noting as he did a sign that read _Cenatio Vulgis_, indicating the direction of the public dining halls. It was as good a direction as any to run, he reckoned.

He risked a quick glance back towards the Vox Terminus, hosing the soldiers that had been brave enough to make after him as he did so. There was no sign of Cotaz or Fullar.

Hoping that they were already inside, he headed off at full pelt down the rapidly emptying corridor, seeking a route to freedom. Judging by the ringing explosions of hard rounds that erupted from the walls and floor around him that he'd drawn off at least two or three more of the soldiers. It would have to do.

The day had gone from bad to worse. It didn't look like getting any better.

xxx

**2350 hours – Five Rivers Docklands**

Everything had gone to hell just half an hour before. The explosion, somewhere off towards the middle of the Inner District, had been audible for miles around. The fire had illuminated the undersides of the cloud-cover like a vision of hell. Darron's squad had been caught in the open while moving through an up-market part of town, heretics falling on them from all sides. He'd managed to hook up with Shopal and Wheln again, but there was no sign of Dror and the others.

They hadn't been able to make contact with anyone else either. The vox was still on the fritz. They were in true guerilla territory now, hitting and running until they were blue in the face. Whatever it was that had happened, Five Rivers was like an anthill that had been well and truly kicked to shit! They couldn't move for enemy patrols and search teams. During their last fracas Darron was sure he'd spotted Traitor Astartes, come to take the reigns and co-ordinate the clean-up operation.

'Time to bow out, boys. We've got to head for the rendezvous... see if we can find any of the others.'

They slipped into a pool of shadow, working their way along a barnacle-encrusted sea-wall. The docklands were vast and built on multiple levels. The five rivers themselves were presently cascading nearly a hundred feet before meeting the sea. Laced with goods canals and storm drains it was difficult for them to get their bearings in the convoluted district.

For Darron the Docklands combined his two worst fears. He hated the water and he couldn't deal with heights. The sooner he got inland the better.

'This looks promising.' Shopal indicated a broad storm drain emptying its payload from their own level into a suspended reservoir twenty feet below. 'There's a maintenance catwalk so there's sure to be a route up to the surface levels deeper inside.'

'I'm not so sure,' Darron hesitated.

'Come on. It's the safest route we'll find.' Shopal led them inside. Darron swallowed his fears and motioned Wheln to follow.

Darron had nearly drowned when he was a kid. As a result he was terrified of the water. It was often so deceptive on the surface, flowing placidly along without menace. But one slip was all it took for you to discover the powerful currents and undertows that a watercourse like this might conceal.

A hundred metres or so in the situation got worse.

Shopal swore and Darron pulled up level with him to see what was up. He could feel the blood drain from his face as he saw the walkway dip into the water. They could see that it continued on, but the walls looked to have subsided over the years. From the algal growth it didn't look to have shifted for a while, but who knew how quickly that stuff grew?

He steeled his guts. What was he afraid of anyway? When the bullets started flying he was the first to dive right in. What was a bit of water to a soldier like him?

'There have been exit ladders and stairwells every fifty paces or so.' He'd been counting. 'Can't be more than twenty or so to the next one. We'll chance it.'

'Why don't we just go back to the last one,' asked Wheln.

'Because I'm fed up of doubling back on ourselves at the slightest sign of trouble. Let's go.'

Darron led the way, wading out against the flow of water with his heart in his mouth. He wondered if he was being stupid.

xxx

**2351 hours – Five Rivers Inner District**

'Where'd that frakking guide disappear off to?'

Fenn shook his head and shrugged.

'I ain't seen him since we split up, boss.'

Jopry cursed lustily. If ever they'd needed the services of that surly bastard it was now. Lost in Five Rivers, surrounded on all sides by the Great Enemy of Mankind. Olanska Vedri would have come in very handy indeed.

Besides Fenn the ex-Arbite had Ollins with him too. They were stalwart, respectable men. Their crimes had been minor compared to some of the reprobates interred on Orrax. Jopry had weeded out the more insubordinate elements of his command up on the Ridge, sending them into hazardous situations for which they had proved their ineptitude. If that seemed hard, then perhaps people didn't give him the credit he had earned.

Jopry was as ruthless as any pen.

But on the flip-side he was even-tempered with those that showed him his due respect. This was what had ensured his survival up on the Ridge. The men he had with him had realised they were better off with him than without him. It made him uneasy to think that some of those men were out there, somewhere, stumbling about in the dark. It felt like he'd betrayed them.

'Come on,' he said. 'We better keep moving.'

xxx

Kionas could smell the loyalist scum. With his keen senses he had been able to track the dogs every step of the way. The only thing that had saved them was their speed. Kionas could have easily caught up with them, but they would have heard him coming and there was no guarantee that he would catch them all.

But now they had stopped. He heard them talking for a few moments while he stole ever closer.

'Come on, we better keep moving,' said the leader.

Kionas pounced.

Charging out of cover he swept one of the trio aside with his accursed crozius, mashing the man's torso. The second fell back, screaming, his finger spasmed on the trigger of his puny weapon. Solid rounds spanged from the Marine's breastplate, one of them ricocheting to clip his jutting brow.

Kionas laughed as he reached out to envelope the man's head in his hand, squashing it like an overripe melon.

The last of them cowered before him, fingers slack about the grip of his weapon. This was the one that had spoken of a rendezvous. This one had information Kionas required. This one would experience exquisite pain before his soul was consumed by the daemons of the warp.

xxx

**2357 hours – Docklands**

The water was cold. The Five Rivers originated in the cold fastnesses of the mountains high in the west and ran fast. They didn't pick up much heat in their rapid progress. Before they'd gone five metres they were frozen up to their knees. But at least the walkway hadn't given underfoot. It seemed fairly solid but Darron advanced cautiously nevertheless.

After ten metres the water was up to their waists. Wheln called a halt and asked Shopal to help him with his vox set. He had to hoist it up onto his shoulder to avoid getting it wet. The strength of the current was becoming a problem. It wasn't particularly strong, but it was relentless. They struggled to make headway against it as the walkway continued to drop ever deeper. Darron wished he'd thought to tie themselves together but it was too late for that now. They had to keep going.

His fear of the water was threatening to overwhelm him. He was already hyperventilating, but this could just as easily have been explained away by the extreme cold. They'd be lucky to escape with mild hypothermia.

After fifteen metres and twenty more of the short, laborious steps they were forced to make, the water was lapping at their armpits. Darron was so numb with terror that he couldn't even feel the cold any more. Shopal had to keep shoving him to remind him to keep moving. The water fought them every inch of the way.

Twenty metres passed them by with no sign of a ladder. Darron kept moving, denying his fears with every fibre of his being. He would make it! He _would_ make it!

Wheln cried out. He'd been forced to drop his bulky vox set to grab hold of Shopal in front of him. The smaller man just didn't have the strength to fight the current any more.

'Darron,' cried Shopal. 'Help!'

He set his feet and reached out, holding the barrel of his weapon in both hands and proffering the stock. The other man grabbed hold as Wheln clung to him and Darron pulled, the weight of them both nearly dragging him from his feet. They splashed frantically to regain their footing while Darron ignored the flaring pain that claimed his entire body from the neck down. His cold-numbed sinews groaned in protest while Darron's frustrated anger with himself and this damned phobia warmed his vitals and spurred him to do that which he did best.

He fought! It was the greatest battle of his life to date and he won it!

Shopal regained his feet and, still holding onto the stock of Darron's gun, helped Wheln to recover his poise. The two men nodded their exhausted thanks to their friend. Carefully, he turned and forged onward.

The water started to creep back down after that. Another ten metres saw them wading through freezing cold, but ankle-deep water. The ledge returned to its intended height and they felt a measure of relief that they had survived the ordeal. Darron felt he had crossed some invisible line he'd long ago drawn in front of himself. He defeated his childhood daemons.

'Look!' Wheln cried, gesticulating as enthusiastically as his exhaustion allowed. A ladder ran up into a gloomy hole, where a circular manhole cover waited to release them from this watery hell.

'We made it,' Shopal gasped.

'But I lost my set...'

'Forget about it. It wasn't working anyway and you'll need your gun more urgently, I think.'

'But I got it wet...'

'I think we all did.' Darron fired an experimental burst up the tunnel. 'It doesn't seem to have had much effect.

'Come on, let's get out of here,' said Shopal, his irrepressible humour quelled by the misery of his circumstances.

Darron led the way, mounting the ladder and lifting the cover to peep out. It appeared to be located in the middle of a road but there was cover to be had not far away. They could make a dash for it if they could summon up the energy.

'It looks clear but we've got to move fast,' he hissed, sliding the manhole cover up and to the side. 'On the count of three follow me out!'

The others clambered up as high as they could and braced themselves for the dash. Darron counted it out and scrabbled up and away, heading for a broad colonnade lining the road. He heard Shopal make it out behind him before the bullets started to chew up the asphalt around them.

Darron dived into cover, Shopal close behind him, swearing like a trooper. He'd been hit. Wheln scrambled behind a column three down from where they were, seemingly unharmed. He pulled himself together remarkably quickly and started returning fire.

'We're pinned down,' Shopal cried, pressing on his ribs to staunch the bleeding.

'You're gonna have to get that looked at,' Darron said. Shopal shot him a withering glare.

'It'll wait! He grunted, pain writ across his face. 'Just like up on the frikkin' ridge all over again. As soon as the bullets start flying I have to go and catch one...'

'You're just lucky I guess,' Darron quipped, snatching a bit of return fire in the general direction of the enemy. He caught a glimpse of them advancing up behind the colonnade on the opposite side of the road. They were making an effective use of covering fire to leapfrog up the road. They'd be on top of them before much longer.

Suddenly one of the red-clad soldiers flopped into the open, his brain-case ruptured. Another shuddered into view, riddled with silenced gunfire.

'Covering fire coming in, let's move!'

The three men quit their grinning, dropped their linen and short shifted it the hell out of there, sloping off down a narrow side-street and into a network of disused byways. Before long they were able to duck into a sunken porch and break into a cellarion to catch their breath and bind Shopal's wound.

'Who do you think it was?' asked Wheln.

'Who cares, we're alive aren't we?' Darron grinned.

'Only just,' griped the little wounded soldier. Shopal's cut was superficial, the bullet had glanced off a rib and only broken the skin. He just seemed to take it as a personal slight that they'd start shooting at him when there were two other perfectly good targets right next to him.

'Drop your weapons please!' came a harsh voice from the dingy periphery of the room. Darron had been helping Shopal with his bandages so his rifle was already on the ground. Wheln dropped his own weapon in pure shock. Three brown shapes detached themselves from the shadows, all armed, weapons trained at the penitent guardsmen.

'I am Chulain Vedri, of the Five Rivers Partisans, and you will give the proper pass code or this will be you final resting place.'

Darron straightened slowly from his work and uttered the password he'd been given.

'Dry river!'

The partisans lowered their weapons.

xxx

**2500 hours – Five Rivers, North Eastern Quarter**

'What!'

Arines didn't like Vedri's reaction. The rendezvous point wasn't as bustling as he'd hoped it would be. At least Darron had turned in with half of Corgan's squad, guided by Olanska's younger brother Chulain. They'd shared a happy reunion, sniping and goading each other as they usually did. Arines had his own squad and four of Jopry's unit had arrived before him. There was no sign of Corgan himself and the vox was still dead.

All these things added up to one royal frak up in his book.

There were less than twenty partisans present. It was this that was distressing Olanska Vedri, who stormed over to where Arines and Darron were conferring.

'Less than one third of the cells have shown up. They must have gone to ground when the alarm went up. They have little faith in you Imperials and your heavy-handed approach.'

'Listen, pal, if it wasn't for us you'd be up the proverbial creek already. Instead you've got a fighting chance of seeing your people freed,' Arines protested. 'But if they're not willing to take a few risks then we may as well just get off home.'

'We still have a couple of hours before the deadline. I'll take a few of my men and go roust the other cells out of hiding,' Vedri offered.

'You better be here by the deadline!'

The look on Vedri's face could have cut stone.

xxx

**2501 hours – Administry Magistratum Precinct**

Jopry was soaked to his very core with pain. Even the slightest movement caused him to go into paroxysms of agony. The torturers were doing a hell of a job on him and they hadn't even broken the skin yet. Whatever that machine was that they'd hooked him up to it had proved more than sufficient to break him to their will.

Of course, it hadn't helped that he was already paralysed with fear. The Traitor Marine alone was enough to make him piss himself. It had killed Fenn and Ollins in less than a couple of seconds and with no more effort than as if he'd been batting off mosquitoes.

Jopry would have handed over his own mother if he thought it would give him a chance to get away, but they hadn't even bothered to ask any questions before plugging him in. Besides, he knew that was never going to happen now. There wasn't going to be any daring rescue. No one even knew he was here and they weren't going to let him live now that he'd given them what they wanted.

'You have betrayed your friends,' came the deep intonations of the preacher Marine. 'Was it for cowardice that you sealed their doom? Or perhaps you realise that you have led a misguided existence...'

Even speaking hurt, but the straw of survival had been dangled cruelly before him. He snatched at it.

'Misguided...' he gasped.

'Yes, perhaps you are, my little flea. But there is hope yet for salvation.'

Again Jopry spasmed, his survival instincts defeating his autonomic response to pain as he spoke again.

'How!'

'You must embrace the Truth,. You must cleanse yourself of your transgressions. You must submit to the rites of purification and then... we shall see how useful you may be.'

Jopry had a fleeting vision of the faces he had seen up on the ridge. Eyelids sewn forever open. Skin and flesh peeled and stapled back from the bone. Cleft noses and cropped ears. Unholy sigils carved into the cheeks of the Faithful.

This was the price of survival.

And he knew that he would pay it.


	12. Schemes Within Schemes

_**Flashback warning! **These events take place before those in Chapter 9.**

* * *

** _

**Day 59, 2000 hours – Tactical Briefing Auditorium, Pelloris Ridge**

Draven had called for a general briefing to be held in the main auditorium of the Pelloris Ridge installation. The room was large enough to accommodate a couple of hundred bodies. The officer cadres of all three regiments numbered exactly a hundred and seventy seven men, meaning there were seats to spare. Centurion Primus Pilus Grantham, CO of the Fifth Legion, entered the auditorium with four of his senior Cohort commanders.

They were men he knew well. The most junior of them, Falcion, was actually a near cousin of his. He had followed in the glorious family tradition of serving with the Adeptus Arbites as was expected of him and last year Grantham had seconded the boy's nomination to the Praefectorum. He was new to the machinations of the Arbites military arm, but under Grantham's wing he was sure to flourish.

The others were hard liners that had served with him on the home-worlds of Cardinal Voldt. They had all joined the Praefectorum together. There was just one hole in their company of late. Noble Corvus had fallen up on the Ridge. Grantham had regretted his decision to co-ordinate the assault from the rear when he heard that Corvus was mortally wounded. For such a man to die alone, surrounded only by denigrates, thieves and murderers was an ignominious end he hoped he would never share in.

Grantham had been mortally offended when Draven had put forward his suggestion that one Escabar Corgan should be installed as Corvus' replacement. Such an insult would have sullied them all, but most importantly it would have been a stain on Corvus' memory. In the end he had been given that puling sop from the Sixth Legion, Gregorin with his fancy-boys and that damned pomander he carried everywhere with him. Still, Jurdisch had spoken up for him, he had a few contacts in the Sixth and all spoke well of the man, so perhaps this Gregorin would turn out for the best. He had put Halwin in charge of Corvus' old unit, giving Gregorin the Third Cohort.

He trusted Halwin better to pull the unruly Second into line and keep tabs on that thorn-in-his-side Escabar Corgan. The man would see them all dead before this campaign ever came to an end. Grantham spotted the cur sitting in the rear-right corner of the room and steered his company in the opposite direction.

'What was that bastard commissar thinking?' Halwin muttered, dwelling on the fact that he had to put up with the man in his company.

'It's not gentlemanly to grumble, Centurion. I don't like the man any more than you do but I'm certain he will be dead within the week. We must ensure that we have a suitable replacement in the meantime...'

Jurdisch nodded his head, sagely.

'I know just the man. One of our transferees from the Sixth. Solid fellow. Should be up to the task.'

'You have served with him?'

'He was one of my provosts back in Hive Trachiad.'

'Then I'm sure he will do nicely.'

'It appears that the commissar has decided to grace us with his presence,' Occidar interrupted. The company took their seats.

Grantham's iron reserve was put sorely to the test when he saw the commissar waltz into the room in his shirtsleeves. His braces hung across his hips and it appeared as if he had forgone shaving that day. His knee-highs were abraded and unpolished and there was no sign of his cap. His appearance was positively unseemly, verging on a reprehensible lack of proper dignity.

Grantham did not approve of the commissar one bit. The day he gallivanted off to raise his Third Founding could not come quickly enough.

'Good evening!' Draven began. 'Welcome to Pelloris Ridge. This briefing is classified at carnelian level.'

One of his tactical advisors started tinkering with a decrepit projector unit built into the stage. Sliding a data-crystal into the unit he wound the brass dials until the thing coughed into life. The lens projected a blurred image that shifted across the white-washed wall facing them.

'I won't lie to you, the invasion of the delta-city is going to be one pig of a scrap,' Draven was marking time while the tactician queued up the pict-feed. We expect it to be twice as bad as the ridge and that it will take three times as long. Maybe longer dependant upon _factors_!'

_Oh how very technical,_ Grantham thought to himself. _Factors! The man's a bloody fool!_

Finally the screen resolved into a discernible image. The main part of the screen unfolded into a three dimensional pict-polygon layout, depicting the city-scape of Five Rivers, dominated by the fire spired Administratum Complex at its heart. On the right hand side of the screen two smaller sections displayed an orbital satellite scan of the region and a detailed topographical overlay.

Draven took up his laser-wand and, with a curt nod of thanks to his assistant, lurched into the briefing proper.

'Obviously, we occupy the higher ground. Our elevated position gives us the greater range for our artillery. This, combined with the fortified nature of the ridge gives us a major advantage. They might shell us, but it will be much less effective than the bombardment we can bring to bear on them. This forms a pivotal basis for the first stage of our new offensive.

'Their guns will be better employed denying us a clear run at the city-limits. They have a killing ground that I am certain they will attempt to use to maximum effect. We will have to employ speed and agility to close with them, but even then we will be at a disadvantage.

'Most of you will have fought in a city-scape before, albeit on a much smaller scale. You will know how brutal the cut and thrust of it can be. When we bring our total force to bear, we would ideally want to maintain the speed we build up crossing the slopes to minimise the enemy's ability to cut us apart from all sides. Without adequate intelligence it would be suicidal to risk this strategy. This is the second reason behind the first stage of my plan.

'Day sixty. We will mount up and drive out with three whole Centuries equipped for stealth work. The mass assault will be but a covering action to get them secreted deep behind enemy lines. During the night they will write our strategy for day sixty-one. They will mark out enemy pockets and strong points. They will call in precision bombardment to take out enemy artillery, making our second assault much safer. They will also conduct sabotage missions in liaison with the guerilla partisans already operating within the city limits.

'This operation will give us the intelligence we need to surgically remove the enemy's vital organs. On day sixty-one there will be no ordered retreat. Our armoured spearhead columns will smash the enemy into small pieces that our reserve units will mop up as they follow on behind us.'

As he spoke he painted five broad salient advances on the display in glowing red. Three pierced the city proper while another advanced down the narrow Western Causeway and the last occupied the much grander Great Eastern Viaduct. All five came together to surround the Administratum Complex.

'Taking the Complex will be our greatest task. Here the enemy will be at their most desperate. The siege could take days or even weeks. The attrition of manpower will be alarming. I make no bones about the magnitude of this task.'

Draven fell silent. Grantham sniffed. It all looked and sounded very impressive, but he doubted it would come off as it was intended. These things rarely did as far as he was aware.

'Are there any questions?' Draven asked.

There was only one. Centurion Grampion of the Seventh Legion's Second Cohort raised his hand to ask; 'Commissar, sir, have you selected the infiltrating units, yet? If not I would like to volunteer my lads for the job.'

Draven smiled and Grantham had to swallow a bark of incredulous laughter.

'Sadly, Centurion, the lots have been cast already. One unit has been selected from each Legion and the Primus Pilus of each has approved my choices.'

Many of the commanders in the room were hanging on Draven's every word, wondering if the chosen officers had even been informed yet. Grantham knew that they had and it had given him great pleasure to approve Draven's choice from his Legion. The opportunities it afforded...

'From the Seventh, Centurion Harrisch.' Murmurs of approval. 'From the Sixth, Centurion Joars of the Fifth Cohort.' More whispering and back slapping. 'And from the Fifth Legion, Centurion Escabar Corgan!'

There was much less fuss made over Corgan's selection. He had put quite a few more noses out of joint than Grantham had realised, despite his lauded heroism up on the ridge. Grantham turned to look up at the swine and was repelled by his knowing little smile and those glinting eyes.

Corgan thought he was going to enjoy his sojourn. Grantham had other plans.

The briefing broke up and the commanders started to filter out of the hall. Grantham caught the eye of the new addition to his staff and Gregorin waltzed over.

'Centurion, please pass my compliments and best wishes on to Centurion Joars. Whilst you're about it, I hope you will request of him permission for me to speak with one of his sergeants... I believe he goes by the name of Roarke!'


	13. Ninety Miles of Bad Road

**Day 61, 0302 hours – Five Rivers, North Eastern Quarter**

Two hours to wait and all was quiet.

Arines walked the perimeter, checking on the lads. Shopal was having his wound cleaned while checking the bindings on his shoulder. Darron and Dror were playing with a deck of cards. They were soldiers. Soldiers got used to waiting

He slumped down next to Wheln. The signalman been trying to fix a damaged vox set that one of the partisans had salvaged. From the fuzzing noise emitting from the horn it sounded like he'd had some luck.

'Is it working?'

'It just needed a new fuse. I had one in my jacket pocket that was still miraculously dry. The set's working fine but the signal's still way too dirty to get a message through to HQ.

Arines looked out towards the darkling spires of the Administratum hub. The far sub-spire was still blazing strong down towards its base. The fire in the communication's tower looked to have been brought under control. At least they were no longer jamming, but the residual interference was still fritzing the signal.

'I hope Biggs made it out of there...' he muttered.

'I'm sure he's fine sir,' Wheln replied, breaking the sergeant's reflective reverie. 'I'm more worried about where Corgan is...'

Arines snorted his amusement.

'I wouldn't worry about him. If anyone survives this mission you can bet your arse it'll be him.'

'Yes sir.'

'Keep trying that thing. You've got the map, right?' Wheln held up the map Arines had given him. There were enemy strong-points on it that they hadn't been able to call in yet. 'And stop calling me sir, you'll give me an authority complex!'

'Why not,' Shopal called out, some of his endemic humour returning now that he was enjoying the relative comfort of a warm, and more importantly dry hiding place. 'You're in charge, aren't you, _sir_!'

Arines couldn't bring himself to laugh as he knew he should. Instead a shudder ran down his spine. Now that he was here he wondered if he wouldn't be happier back on Orrax. Safer, he didn't doubt. Then again, he knew that above all other things he was a soldier, born and bred. Fighting was what he did. It was responsibility that weighted him down. He was a dog-soldier, or at the most good solid NCO material. He wasn't cut out to be an officer. And yet he had a funny feeling that if he survived this carnival he was likely to be "lucky" enough to get promoted. That was his worst nightmare.

He tugged at the shaggy growth on his chin. It'd be long enough for him to start grooming, soon enough. He'd feel a heck of a lot more comfortable when he'd cultivated his old moustaches back to their former glory. They'd always been a strange comfort to him when times were hard, like the company of an old friend. It seemed wholly irrational, but he missed them like hell.

He nestled down and laid his head back on a chunk of fallen masonry. Most of a soldier's time was spent in waiting. But he'd been a soldier all his life. He was used to it He'd come to appreciate that he'd rather be waiting than dying.

Small blessings.

xxx

**0436 hours – Five Rivers, North Eastern Quarter**

An hour and a half later and the shit had really hit the fan. They were occupying the ground floor of a two story warehouse. There was one large hangar door that had now been reduced to shrapnel, and two smaller exits that could easily be held by two or three people. The main door was proving a problem as they hadn't thought to build a barricade behind it and now it gaped like an open wound. The partisans were trying to move some heavy duty crates up to make the hole a bit more defensible while the penitents troopers used the windows on the first floor gantry to keep the swarming enemy infantry at bay.

'This had to happen now, didn't it?' Arines roared. 'That Vedri's given us up, I just know it! When I put my hands round that frikkin' traitor's neck you better not try and stop me...'

'No fear,' Darron replied, rising to fire off a volley at the advancing heretics. 'We need heavy support...' he cried.

'Where the hell from?' Arines protested, at a loss.

Darron shimmied along to the edge of the gantry, keeping his head down.

'Wheln! Have you managed to get through to HQ yet?'

The vox-operator shook his head.

'Keep trying. See if you can get them to lay some munitions on the road outside.' He worked his way back to the lip of the window and took a quick glance outside. The prognosis wasn't good. These cultists looked like they were formed from some kind of elite brigade with their hooked blades and black, steel masks.

'Don't you think that's a bit risky?' asked Arines.

Darron shrugged.

'If we're gonna die either way I don't see what difference it makes!'

He had a point.

xxx

Kionas held out the long, wickedly barded blade. The traitor reached out for it, taking it in trembling hands and holding it awkwardly before him.

'Your final trial is before you, little flea. Carry it out!'

The one that had once been known as Jopry turned his mutilated body towards the warehouse where his former compatriots were holding out. The large, blasted out portal was ominously empty. Most of the gunfire was coming from the windows above it.

Turning to the Faithful that were now his brethren he nodded, just once, and charged out into the open, driven by his pain. The Faithful went with him, throwing themselves into the pitiful fusillade.

Kionas nodded his approval and stood back to enjoy the din of war that was as music to his ears. The snap-crack of las-fire and the chattering of autoguns. The cannonade of heavy weapons and the whistle of incoming shell-fire...

He hesitated, cocking an ear to catch the thin whistling sound. He hadn't requested any bombardment...

The first shell-fall ruptured the asphalt twenty metres from his location, ripping the road up into the air and sending rubble and body-parts showering in all directions. The heretics seemed oblivious to it, a few broke and ran but were cut down by Kionas' vengeful brethren. The rest knew the price of cowardice and kept going. The bombardment took its toll but surely it was too little too late...

The Imperial scum had brought their communications back on line. That was bad news. But it was too little too late. Death had arrived.

xxx

The heretics kept on coming. Through the eruptions of explosive rubble and the columns of black smoke, some still coated with burning fyceline like living torches. They poured through the doorway and into the carefully timed volley of partisan gunfire. They fell in droves.

Arines scooted to the edge of the gantry and fired down into the morass. He knew they couldn't hold out. If the bombardment hadn't discouraged them then this had to be the end.

But he wasn't going to die cheaply. That he swore.

xxx

**0505 hours – Five Rivers, Great Eastern Viaduct J.12**

The Great Eastern had fallen under the remit of the Seventh Legion's Second Cohort. Centurion Grampion, along with Harker and his Sixth Cohort, were finding the going extremely difficult. In fact, their armoured advance was entirely stymied despite the causeway's massive width

The main assault had only just begun and already he'd lost twelve tanks, four of them destroyed with all hands. The enemy had laid networks of land-mines and other nasty little surprises across the first approaches. Behind this they had three parallel barricades of salvaged rubble, each higher than the one in front so that the heavy weapons emplacements could fire without hindrance.

Grampion had ordered his men to disembark and travel behind their tanks while the Chimeras lowered their dozer blades. They still suffered casualties. Sometimes the Chimera would pass between two mines and set off another in the chain, meaning that the vehicle and any men behind it were caught in the blast. It made it essential to keep as tight a formation as possible, but the enemy fire would have been quite sufficient to give them hell even without the added worry of mines.

To make things worse, as they closed with the first set of barricades, the enemy deployed their shock troops. It appeared that any cultist who had not the mental fortitude to withstand the horrible self-mutilation that was their wont was summarily bound up in explosive jackets and sent careening out from the barricades in their berserk frenzy. The destruction they wrought was fantastic and the hull mounted weapons simply weren't enough to catch them all.

Grampion was starting to get angry by the time they'd smashed the first set of barricades aside and put the Cultists into retreat. But at least they'd managed it. When he realised that the next stretch of road was set up identically to the first he was seen to slump as though on the verge of packing up and going home.

Instead he straightened himself up and turned to Harker, issuing the order to start over.

It was going to be a long day.

xxx

**0506 hours – Five Rivers, Western Causeway, J.11**

The Western Causeway was a much smaller affair than its eastern cousin, almost frail in appearance where the other was cyclopean. The going was much easier. The cultists acted in their usual deranged fashion, charging down on the advancing column as their heavy weapons pounded away for all they were worth.

Centurion Hadrius urged his boys on with a swell of pride in his chest, standing up in the turret of his command chimera and popping off the odd shot with his laspistol. It did his men good to see their leader heading up the advance with such disregard for his own safety. It made them feel indestructible.

They were passing between two particularly tall buildings to either side of the road when something big landed on top of Hadrius' tank and pulled him up out of the turret. His men could only watch as he was disembowelled and torn to shreds by a screaming monster with wings of steel.

The Word Bearers had arrived.

Raptors fell from the windows of the buildings all around, tearing open the top-hatches to get at the juicy innards. Those that had had already disembarked were taken to pieces by coordinated bolter fire from the windows that had disgorged the daemonic jump troops. The Imperial advance was halted. The Sixth Legion had met its nemesis.

Draven reacted quickly to the news that his left flank was severely overrun, if not entirely destroyed. He wasted no time at all in deploying the mobile reserve, two more Cohorts of the Sixth Legion, to seal up the gap. He also instructed Centurion Grantham to turn and face the new menace that threatened to outflank him. They had to stop the Marines from rolling them up.

The Commissar split his own column to compensate for the redirection of the Fifth, unwilling to grant a stay of execution to those locations pin-pointed by Centurion Harrisch's infiltrators. The time-scale of the operation was severely dented, but he still had enough men to bring the plan to fruition.

The only thing that truly worried him was that he no longer had a reserve. But what was a reserve anyway, if he didn't use it? Only a wasted asset...

xxx

**0508 hours – North Eastern Quarter**

Jopry slashed left and right with his ritual blade of cleansing. He'd taken three near-fatal shots already but he'd managed to close with the partisans, denying them the ability to shoot at him without the probability of hitting their compatriots. Now _he_ had the advantage.

The past half an hour had been a blur of pain, rage and confusion. He only knew that to live he had to cleanse. To cleanse he had to kill.

A familiar face rose up beyond the ring of pale faces around him. A burly, bearded man that he knew from before his conversion to the Faithful. Hacking through a cordon of flesh he came to the bottom of a flight of metal steps on which the familiar man stood.

The man had lost his gun and had a knife in either hand. He was covered in blood, not all of it his own but surely some of it.

'I know you...' said the one he had known as Arines.

Jopry screamed and his cry was filled with loss and regret. But his path was set before him. There could be no turning back. He charged.

xxx

Arines recognised the cultist as the bloodied wretch hesitated at the foot of the stairs. It was Jopry. The mystery of who had given their location away was sealed. Arines' anger was sucked away as he looked down on what had become of the man. He'd never really liked him, but he hadn't deserved this.

Jopry's left cheek was scored with an eight-pointed star. His right had been laid open, the flesh stapled back to reveal the ticking muscle tissue beneath. His eyelids looked to have been entirely removed and a tracery of metal stitches held the flaps of his scalp away from the blood-reddened dome of his skull.

The nightmare flew at him and he was forced to defend himself. His anger returned, colder than before. He landed a kick that broke Jopry's jaw and sent him staggering back down the stairs. He followed up with two well timed slashes that opened the flesh across the traitor's stomach.

But Jopry didn't seem to feel the pain. Another in coherent scream brought him back like a locomotive engine, with that wicked machete whirling.

Arines was forced back. He lost his footing as he retreated up the stairs.

Jopry stood over him, a lop-sided, broke-jaw grin across his face. He raised the machete above his head in both hands, ready to bring a terminal end to the exchange.

Arines was just about to resign himself to death when a volley of solid-slugs took Jopry in his exposed flank, driving him into the wall. His head came apart in several jellied pieces and his corpse flopped to the foot of the stairs. Arines flinched as the machete embedded itself, point-down in the grille-work step, not three inches from his family jewels.

Olanska Vedri pulled it free and tossed it aside, offering his hand to help Arines up.

'Looks like I owe you an apology, mate!'

xxx

Corgan materialised out of the drifting smoke like a long-awaited prophet. Darron couldn't even summon up the energy for the kind of reaction he wanted to display. Instead he continued blasting away at the red-armoured cultists with a smile of slack relief on his face.

Everything was going to be all right.

Lita was beside him. Together they were mowing down cultists like a well oiled threshing machine. Even the deranged heretics couldn't stand up to the kind of suppression fire they were putting down. Caught in the open as the heretics now were, it was a slaughter-yard. The shell-pocked road was strewn with dead and dying from both sides, the craters awash with blood. But for each partisan and penitent that had fallen another seven heretics lay broken beside them, cut down in their deranged, headlong charge. It looked as though they'd managed to pull it off.

That was when the Marines opened up.

Darron narrowly avoided a mass-reactive volley that churned up the broken asphalt, spitting chunks of hot debris at him. He dived into cover, bellowing at his fellows to get the hell down. Partisans went flying, more often than not in pieces. Even the reinforcements coming in behind Corgan faltered. Darron made out three of the frakkers. Two were laying down a deadly crossfire while the third emerged from a broken hab with some kind of power weapon. It didn't look like he was carrying a gun, but what difference did that make? They were just as dead...

xxx

Corgan didn't even flinch when the Traitor Astartes broke cover. He just reselected his target and kept firing. When his clip ran dry he cast the weapon aside and snatched up a bulky assault rifle from the limp hands of an elite cultist. The weapon had a kick to it that felt good after lugging that damn pea-shooter around.

One of the Marines stumbled, going down on one knee. Corgan's first few shots had punctured the Astarte's leg armour and a trickle of blood oozed for a moment before his haemastamen plugged the leak. It kept shooting, but it hadn't seen where the shots came from.

The nearest of the Traitor Marines, wielding a massive power-maul but otherwise unarmed, spotted Corgan and started towards him, bellowing profanities at the top of his prodigious lungs. The assault rifle sent chips flying from his breastplate and a couple of rounds might even have gone through but the Demagogue kept on coming, unperturbed.

Corgan braced his feet wide and brought the rifle up to his shoulder. The Marine wasn't wearing a helmet and he was about the regret it. Momentarily at least.

Time slowed down.

The world seemed to shrink around him.

The gun kicked once and the shell casing spun sluggishly away.

The bullet itself hit the Demagogue squarely in the forehead... and bounced off.

The gun kicked a second time. Another shell case fluttered away.

This time the slug glanced from the sloping dome of the Marine's toughened skull.

A third kick. A third sparkling cylinder arced into the air.

Nothing. That round missed completely, the recoil driving Corgan's shoulder back and fritzing his aim.

The Marine was three paces away and still closing, the power maul raised above his head.

Corgan corrected.

Two paces.

A kick. A second kick. Three.

Shell casings spun into the ether and the sound didn't even register to Corgan's ears as blood spurted from the Marine's eye and the bridge of his battered nose caved inward. The bullets smashed fragments of bone deep into the Demagogue's brain-case, doing massive damage to the grey matter beyond.

Agostas Kionus, Demagogue of the Word Bearers Third Enclave, fell like a sack of boulders, gouging his own impact crater in the asphalt as he slid to a halt. Corgan had managed to dive aside before the juggernaut hit him head on, but his roll was never going to be clean, surrounded as he was by the broken corpses of the Faithful.

The third Marine stomped over toward him, bellowing with rage at the death of his master. Corgan could feel his heart palpitating as the behemoth stood over him, savouring its moment of vengeance. Then its shoulder caved it, crushed and pulped by the head of the Demagogue's power maul.

xxx

Lita pressed home her assault. She'd come to enjoy the primeval sensation of hitting things with a big club – and this was one hell of a club. She found it mildly distasteful to the touch, but a club was a club when all was said and done... it was just that this one had a freaky power field that tore through power armour like it was paper.

The Marine had been unprepared for her assault, otherwise it might have been able to put up more of a fight. It took three more hefty bludgeons to finish it off and then she fell to her knees. Her shoulders, massive though they were, had been pushed to the absolute limit to swing that thing as she had.

'Damn!' Corgan muttered, slinging an arm under one armpit to help her to her feet. 'Looks like I owe you again!'

She shot him a mischievous grin.

'Don't worry, I'll collect the debt in some more amicable form...'

xxx

The last Marine had made its escape. The remaining cultists scattered to the four winds in his wake. Arines, Darron, Shopal and Wheln strode from the smoking building, wending their way between piles of corpses. Other silhouettes moved within the warehouse, picking over the dead, dragging the wounded out from under them to see if they had a chance at survival.

'Is this all you managed to save?' Corgan asked.

'Nah, I think we've about seventeen of our lads still breathing, though not all of them are walking,' Arines replied casually. He looked like death warmed up. They all did. But he sounded, as he always did when the bullets finally stopped trying to kill him, like he'd just stepped out for a stroll.

'What do we do now?' asked Darron.

'We carry out the rest of our mission,' Corgan replied. 'What else were you expecting?'


	14. Taking the Reins Part 1

**1145 hours, Day 61 – Great Eastern Terminus**

Centurion Grampion had won the race to be the first man to set foot upon the Progressus Imperius. Or so he had thought. When he reached Great Eastern Terminus that marked the entrance to the vast concourse, overlooked by the baroque and pitted surface of the Grand Portico, it was to find a familiar face among the burnt out ruins of the Terminus.

He had not been formally introduced to Centurion Corgan, but he had been there on day fifty-seven then the Commissar had moved in to reinforce the last bastion of the Fifth up on Pelloris Ridge. He had seen a man whom the tides themselves could not wear down. The vista that opened out before him as his vehicle ground to a halt just inside the Great Eastern Terminus was very different.

The silence was deafening.

The enemy had, of course, been holding this place in force, waiting for Grampion and what remained of his battered and weary companies to come within striking distance. They had set up their heavy weapons on the high gantries. Their infantry had hidden within the burnt out wrecks of the grav-trains that had ended their lives here during the initial occupation. But they had not been prepared for an assault from behind.

Corgan had less than a score of his Century with him, but the partisans had turned out in force. Together this ragtag scratch company had pulled off the seemingly impossible once again. The cultists had been slaughtered where they waited. Many of them had not even known about the attack until crude molatov cocktails had turned their hiding places into flaming incinerators, cremating them alive. The heavy weapons had proved too heavy to be turned around before the partisans butchered the operators.

Grampion's final approach to what he had expected to be the hardest fight of his life, was in fact the easiest. He couldn't help but be relieved after the losses he had taken thus far.

Corgan's men were lounging around, taking their ease after what looked like a brutal close-quarters fight. The Centurion himself sauntered over as Grampio's Cohort rolled in and began their deployment into the Terminus.

'Well met, Centurion. I'm glad, though unsurprised, to find you alive.' Grampion jumped down from his steed and held out his hand. Corgan shook it without reply. He didn't speak much, this ex-penitent hero.

'We'll take over from here, my friend.' Grampion smiled. 'I reckon you've done enough for a well-earned rest.'

'If it's all the same to you, Centurion, we'd rather resupply and carry on.'

'I'm afraid they aren't my orders, old chap. Commissar-General said all infiltrators we found were to be retired from the front. The only exception to the ruling are the partisans, they may be given the choice to carry on as it is their home we fight to liberate. Don't worry, you can leave some glory for the rest of us.' Grampion grinned, relief still surging within him.

Corgan had been in the field for nearly forty-five hours. He'd managed to get some shut-eye after rescuing Lita, but he was still beyond any level of exhaustion he'd ever felt before.

Arines, Darron and the others sauntered over from where they'd been resting.

'Pack it up, boys, it's well past your bedtime!'

xxx

**1800 hours, Day 61 – Pigsty Bar, Pelloris Ridge**

Arines, Darron, Lita and Corgan had decided to drink away the rest of the day. After their return they'd all caught a few hours of much-needed sleep. Even the rumble of the nearby artillery emplacements hadn't been enough to keep them from their slumber. Now they were gathered in the womb-like interior of a booth in the sanctioned drinking house.

They were the only ones there apart from the Munitorum servitor behind the bar. The rest of the unit was tucked up asleep and everyone else was still fighting down in the valley. Corgan hadn't even bothered to check up on the progress of the assault, but it still sounded pretty hairy down there.

'So what the hell happened?' asked Arines. Corgan knew immediately what he was referring to. He remained unrepentant about his dereliction of duty during the previous day. No one appeared to have held it against him – at least no one that had survived.

'It was a trap,' he replied. 'Lita was the bait.'

'So Poalan and Roarke had their heads together?' asked Darron.

'Sure, why not. They were in the same unit before the transfer, although I doubt they were friends, what with Roarke being a pen and all. That's why I think there's more to it. It's too much coincidence, otherwise...'

'Like...' Arines cut in, 'how did Roarke know that his unit was going to be in the right place at the right time?'

'Exactly. There had to be someone in the top brass pulling strings for him.'

'So who else do we know with connections to the Sixth? Apart from Lita that it...' asked Darron.

'Gregorin was Joars' commanding officer before he got transferred to the Fifth,' Lita's conjecture filled in another piece of the puzzle. 'Wolfe and his cronies were already starting to throw their weight around before the ridge. I dread to think how much influence they have by now.'

'So Gregorin has a word with his former Primus Pilus to make sure that Roarke's unit is sent in on day sixty. How does Poalan come into the equation?'

'These ex-arbites are all thick as thieves,' she said. 'Maybe one of Grantham's crew knew him of old?'

Arines snatched at the possibility, offering another tid-bit for mental consumption.

'Most of the wardens come from Cardinal Voldt. I think that's where their military arm is based. They're all related through some long-lost cousin or another so Lita's probably right.'

Corgan was starting to piece it all together in his head. He'd had suspicions, but now they were getting somewhere.

'Okay. So Grantham and his cronies disapproved my promotion, right? But Draven wouldn't let them revert me to the rank and file so it stands to reason that they want me as dead as Wolfe and his boys. Only Roarke failed to give me more than a few bruises when he tried the first time, so they had to get smart about things.'

'So when Draven consults with the Primus Pilus about his battle-plan...' Arines continued, 'Grantham puts your name forward and whispers in his buddy's ear to make sure Joars is in the same boat... But wait a second, how did they know you'd go alone?'

Corgan smiled.

'That's easy. They made it personal. Roarke knows I do my best work alone.'

'So,' Arines concluded, 'If this goes all the way to the top like we think, we have a serious problem...'

'I can fix it,' Corgan asserted.

'Forget it, mate, you don't want to get your hands dirty with this shit. Let us sort it out for you. Just tell us what to do and we'll get it done.'

'No. I'd rather get shit on my own hands than drop you in it head-first. Besides, no offence, but when it comes to this kind of subtlety, _I_ know what I'm doing.'

xxx

**1200 hours, Day 62 – Officers Mess, Pelloris Ridge**

The officers' mess was a civilised affair in comparison to the slop tents where the rankers got fed. Long rows of wooden tables filled the room. Meals were served from a counter at the far end, on clean crockery and with stainless steel cutlery. The food itself was good solid stodge, high in carbs and protein to keep the officer cadre strong and energetic.

Corgan hadn't taken to eating there. He wasn't one of them – an outsider through and through. They didn't like him and the feeling was mutual. Prejudice was bred into the Adeptus. On the other side of the bars the penitents learned to mirror it well.

Grampion tapped him on the shoulder as he joined the queue behind him.

'We meet again, Centurion,' Grampion smiled, proffering his hand. Corgan shook it, again without reply. Grampion was starting to turn up everywhere he went like a bad penny.

'I don't mind admitting that it's a relief to be back behind the lines,' he sighed. He was still filthy from the previous day and night's fighting and was probably looking for a bite to eat before retiring to his quarters.

The battle for the city was going well. The Word Bearers had been driven back to the Administratum Complex. The rest of the city was crawling with cultists, but they were more a nuisance than a menace. The Complex itself was going to be a hard nut to crack, but they had time on their side, now.

Corgan grunted.

Grampion was the only ex-Arbite that had even tried to get to know Corgan. He supposed that made him okay, but Corgan was going to have trouble overcoming the ingrained opinion that all wardens were essentially pigs.

'I trust you are rested?'

'Frak rest, I've had work to do.'

'Haven't you assigned yourself an adjutant to run your errands?'

Corgan shot him a look of disdain.

'When I need a runner, I've twenty men that can do the job. The rest of the time I use my own bloody legs!'

Grampion was taken aback, but it seemed he was not the easiest of men to offend.

'Admirable. I imagine it's difficult adjusting to your new authority. I myself had some trouble with the transition from law-man to soldier, but I suppose the two roles are not so very different in the broad view.'

Corgan held the law in as much contempt as he did authority, so he reasoned it was best not to reply. Grampion continued, unperturbed by Corgan's unresponsiveness. Corgan just zoned him out and picked up his tray, carrying the steaming food to a nearby table. Grampion followed, still waffling, not seeming to notice that Corgan's attention was fixed on the entrance.

It wasn't long before Gregorin entered the room, flanked by two of his men, a sergeant and a corporal by their stripes. All three were of the typical Praefectorum stock, swarthy and pale skinned. Gregorin sported a well-groomed beard and held a pomander to his nose. He walked with the self-confidence born of years in a position of authority. Corgan waited for them to be served before making his move.

Excusing himself from Grampion's company he sauntered over.

'Centurion,' he called. Gregorin looked up but before he could reply the sergeant had leapt to his feet to intercept Corgan. The corporal was a second or two slower.

'A moment, Sergeant Dunst, Corporal Helo. Step aside, please.' Dunst backed down reluctantly, while Helo looked relieved.

Corgan hadn't seemed to notice either of them, his attention fixed on Third Cohort's new CO.

'Might I speak with you privately, sir?'

Gregorin hesitated, weighing something behind the bland, inscrutable eyes.

'Of course. A moment, please, gentlemen.'

Dunst looked like he was about to object and Helo appeared hurt. Corgan had heard the rumours about Gregorin's sexual preferences and what he saw went some way towards convincing him of their accuracy. It was useful to know.

Gregorin gestured for him to sit down on the bench opposite.

'How are you settling in, sir?' asked Corgan. The question seemed to take Gregorin by surprise and he seemed to relax, shedding a certain tension in his shoulders.

'Centurion Halwin has given me a good solid unit. The Third Cohort runs very well. It has not been a trial to take up the reins.'

Corgan smiled, adopting the most obsequious expression he could manage. He dreaded to think what he looked like, but it would be worth it in the long run.

'What about the other Priors, how are you fitting in with them?'

The tension returned. Corgan's suspicions confirmed without the need for Gregorin to reply. The man was ambitious. He'd been take out of familiar territory and thrust into command of a unit he didn't know, forced to start networking again from scratch. His hopes for promotion had been stymied by his impromptu reassignment.

'I only ask because I know how difficult it can be to fit in with one's peers...' he would have to thank Grampion for the inspiration behind that. He saw a sudden flare of anger behind Gregorin's eyes. He didn't like being set alongside an ex-pen. Another barb set in the man's skin.

'Why don't we cut to the chase, Centurion. I have the feeling you have something of greater import to speak to me about.' That barb had done its work. Gregorin had thought himself clear of suspicion when Corgan started making small talk, but the junior officer hadn't merely come sniffing after the scraps from Gregorin's table. He was intelligent enough to know when he was being goaded.

'The general opinion of me isn't high among your circles of influence, is it Centurion?'

Gregorin favoured him with a laconic smile.

'I'll be blunt. Few of us rejoiced to hear that a penitent trooper had been elevated to the rank of officer. You have to understand that there are prejudices involved...'

'The prejudice works both ways, sir, I can assure you of that. And here I am, stuck in the middle...'

'You seem to be getting along just fine to me, Centurion.' That last word was uttered with barely concealed contempt. 'How else would you have won such renown?'

'It comes at a price.'

'We are getting nowhere with this foreplay...'

Corgan smiled. It was time to cut to the long-awaited chase after all.

'I know you conspired with Grantham and his cronies, probably to ingratiate yourself with them.' Gregorin's studiously blank expression confirmed it. Corgan pressed home. 'I'm also pretty certain that you never even batted an eyelid when they told you their plan. Well, as you've probably figured out by now, I'm not the kind of man that takes it lying down!' He hoped Gregorin appreciated the pun, his blank expression didn't budge.

'I'll be coming to collect. You can tell them that from me!'

xxx

**2100 hours – Officers Billets, Pelloris Ridge**

Grantham was fuming.

'That upstart has the temerity to threaten me!' His face had gone a very amusing shade of purple so Falcion and Jurdisch made their excuses and left. It wouldn't have been difficult to get into trouble if they stuck around. Halwin was too obtuse, and too incensed, to follow suit. Gregorin didn't have any option.

'I'll arrange an accident for him, sir...'

Gregorin sighed a long-suffering sigh.

'We tried that, remember? This man is very good at staying alive. He's also very good at getting to the bottom of our best laid plans. If he goes to the Commissar-General with this...'

'He won't. Five Rivers proved that,' Grantham put in. He'd regained some measure of calm and was busily straightening his well-pressed uniform. 'This fellow obviously enjoys taking care of his own business.'

'I'm telling you my boys can handle this kind of thing, they've had experience...' Halwin insisted.

'If you think any of us are ignorant of the occasional necessities involved in our line of work then you are even more stupid than I thought,' Gregorin blurted. 'I've had my men dispatch trouble-makers in precisely the way you suggest, Centurion, do not take me for a sop...'

'Funny that, you must have been reading my thoughts...'

Gregorin was struggling to contain himself. Halwin was his senior officer. It wouldn't do to strike him no matter how infuriating the man was.

'Gentlemen,' Grantham interjected. 'Please do not bicker, it belittles us all. This Roarke fellow obviously suffered from the Catachan's greatest vice; arrogance! The Corgan situation must be dealt with. Make the arrangements, if you please, Halwin. You are both dismissed.'

Gregorin spun on his heel and left the block. Dunst and Helo fell in beside him.

'That man tests me to the very limits,' he growled, meeting Dunst's eyes most earnestly. 'One of these day's he'll get his just desserts, you mark my words.'

Dunst nodded curtly.

'Permission to be relieved, sir?'

Gregorin nodded his assent, noting the lingering look with which the sergeant favoured Helo as he left their company.

Dunst had always been most loyal, but alas he was getting old. The last thing Gregorin wanted these days was the constant reminder of the passage of time. Lifting the pomander to his nose he drew Helo after him, heading for his quarters.

xxx

Centurion Halwin was found the next morning with his throat slit. He was lying face down in a lake of his own blood. His adjutant reported that he hadn't returned from his conference with Grantham. The murder scene was certainly along the most direct route from Grantham's quarters to his own.

Commissar-cadet Vaughn had been trained in investigative techniques as part of his education at the Scholam Progenium and so was put in charge of the case.

Unfortunately there was a distinct lack of evidence. The murder weapon, which the coroner told him was a small, extremely sharp blade, was nowhere to be found. The cadaver bore no evidence of the killer. Halwin had the blood of at least seven penitents on his clothing, all of them dead or severely wounded. He also had plenty of blood and skin samples taken from under his fingernails. None of this matched the blood on his clothing, or any other sample held in the Medicae database, and so probably originated from some cultist or another that Halwin had killed.

A thorough forensic search turned up nothing that could be attributed to Halwin's murderer.

Vaughn interviewed Grantham and the other officers of his inner-circle, as well as Halwin's own junior officers, but all he could turn up was the petty bickering between Halwin and Gregorin. It was nowhere near enough to convict, so the case-file was listed as pending and filed away until further evidence came to light.

He wasn't forced to wait for long.


	15. Taking the Reins Part 2

_This chapter marks the end of the second phase of the Battle of Five Rivers. The third will be following soon, but it may take some time. In the meantime I hope you enjoy the conclusion of this episode ofCSI: Five Rivers.

* * *

_

**1030 hours, Day 63 – North Eastern Quarter**

The Fifth was charged with escorting an aid-train to the poverty-stricken northern quarters. Draven wanted the top-brass to have a visible presence on the streets so Jurdisch was landed with the job. It was part of the Commissar's attempt to reach the hearts and mind of the populace, whom he depended upon to root out pockets of resistance hiding in the city. Jurdisch wasn't happy about it, but Corgan thanked Draven for the opportunity it afforded him.

He'd had Shopal visit the munitions reclamation depot that morning. The piece he'd smuggled out would do the job nicely.

Ducking back into the shadows of a fourth-flour window he slotted the disposable barrel into the body of the long-las and slammed a clip home. The street below was a riot of starving citizens, hampering the advance of Jurdisch's column. It was perfect.

He brought the rifle up to his shoulder, settling his eye to the sight and his finger over the trigger-stud. The cross-hair dissected Jurdisch's aristocratic features. Four hundred metres down the street. With the press of the crowd and the panic that would ensue, Corgan would be long gone before anyone came anywhere near him. Nevertheless, he had a carefully prepared exit strategy just in case.

He breathed out... and took the shot.

Jurdisch's brains exploded over the men occupying the half-track behind him and his lifeless corpse flopped over into a pathetic, twitching heap.

The crowds broke. A second or two later Jurdish's men started deploying and running for cover. Pandemonium ensued.

Corgan slung the rifle over his shoulder and left the room, moving along the corridor to the lift-lobby. The elevators had been without power for weeks. Corgan had entered the building by more conventional means, selecting this particular lift shaft as his escape route because the elevator car itself was stuck some floor above him. He swung out onto the maintenance ladder than ran down into the bowels of the hab-block's basement. At the bottom he pulled open the hatch that admitted him to the sink-levels, mounted another ladder and closed the hatch behind him.

He and Lita had used the sink-levels to get around during the chaos of day sixty. They'd used the maze of tunnels and maintenance access-ways to run a guerilla war of their very own, emerging to hit-and-run before disappearing again. Corgan's Underhive instincts had served him well.

He followed his instincts east and emerged into daylight in the Docklands. Here, the rifle went into the sea and Corgan made his way up to street level. He'd left his squad playing cards in an abandoned warehouse while he did the deed. Now they could return to their assigned patrol and no one would ever be the wiser.

Three minutes later Wheln picked up a vox-cast warning all Imperials in the area to be on the lookout for an enemy sniper that had slipped the net

Corgan allowed himself a little smile.

xxx

**0902 hours, Day 64 – Officers Billets, Pelloris Ridge**

Corporal Helo balanced a stack of mash-card cartons in his arms. He'd thought it might cheer Gregorin up to be served his breakfast in bed. He hadn't been himself the last couple of days. Not since he'd been interviewed about the death of Centurion Halwin. Gregorin thought that their argument earlier in the evening might have put him in the frame, but Vaughn had let him go pending the discovery of sufficient hard evidence.

Gregorin hadn't been happy about his reassignment, period. A sideways move had not featured anywhere in his plans, let alone his potential implication in a murder case. His sole comfort seemed to be found in the arms of...

Helo blushed at the very thought.

Knocking at the door he received no reply. He tried the handle and found it wasn't even latched properly. It swung open at his touch.

Blood. Everywhere. On the sheets, the bare floorboards, the pile of discarded clothing... Gregorin lay spread-eagled, tangled in the crimson bedding, naked and staring, his eyes wide with shock.

The mash-cartons tumbled from Helo's nerveless hands as he fell to his knees and started screaming.

xxx

**0930 hours – Officers Billets, Pelloris Ridge**

Draven sighed. The three Legions had seen plenty of murder since they set out from Orrax but usually the penitents had the courtesy to only murder each other. The Fifth was proving to be a hot-bed of discontent, lately.

He winced at the unintended pun. Gregorin had been somewhat blatant about his sexual preferences since he'd signed up for duty with the Sixth. It looked like he'd finally reaped the rewards of his forbidden passions.

'Looks like a crime of passion, sir,' said Vaughn, echoing his thoughts as he indicated the numerous stab-wounds congregated about Gregorin's groin. Plastek-sheathed forensic technicians moved around the room, examining ever little item for potential clues.

'I'd say you were right, cadet. Will you be comfortable dealing with this matter on your own?'

'Of course, sir. You should concentrate on the siege. I've been trained for this.'

'Thank you. Please pass regular reports to my orderlies.'

'Yes sir.'

The boy was shaping up nicely. He seemed to have shed much of his boyish pride while the ridge had made a man of him. He had conducted himself with admirable courage and stolidity since that day. Draven trusted him to do what could be done, here. He exchanged a salute with the cadet and spun on his heel.

xxx

**1005 hours – Officer's billets, Pelloris Ridge.**

Occidar let the scrap of paper slip from his fingers. He tried to still the trembling in his limbs. Halwin dead, now Gregorin. The note said that _he_ was to be next. He had to do something, and he had to do it quickly.

He activated the intercom, connecting him to his adjutant's desk outside his office.

'Ascon, I don't wish to be disturbed for a while, understood?'

'Yes sir.'

He cut the link and moved over to his foot-locker, taking out his kit-bag. He began to pack.

xxx

**1500 hours – Pelloris Ridge Stockade**

Vaughn had two prime suspects, Dunst and Helo. Both were reputed to have been Gregorin's lovers at one point or another, Helo most recently. Looking at them, Vaugh suspected Dunst to be the most capable of murder, and he also had a motive. He had been spurned in favour of a younger man. Helo didn't look like he'd cut it as a soldier, let alone be capable of murder. Nevertheless, both men were brought in for questioning, their quarters searched.

It proved a worthwhile endeavour. The evidence they turned up put both men squarely in the frame. The murder-weapon was an ornamental switch-blade, razor-sharp and suitable for slashing or stabbing. The boots of both men were taken from examination and comparison. The technicians had already confirmed that the tread-pattern matched that of a shipment distributed exclusively to the officer cadre of the Sixth Legion, reassuring him that he was on the right lines.

Vaughn put the men in separate interview rooms to sweat it out, while the evidence was examined. He took the opportunity to observe them during this time. Helo was an emotional wreck. He cradled his head in his arms and sobbed until he had no strength left to continue. Dunst was remarkably cool, under the circumstances. He sat and waited, trying his best to look unconcerned. But Vaughn picked up the little nuances of fear in the quick, nervous movements he made.

Inspector Jorat brought him the proof he needed at 1520 hours. He scanned the report.

'Very well. See that Corporal Helo is directed to his quarters,' he instructed. 'I'll speak with Dunst myself.'

The door slammed behind him as he entered the stark interview room. Dunst flinched when Vaughn dropped the murder weapon onto the steel table, along with a boot with dark, flaking mud between the treads.

'You didn't do enough, I'm afraid. The game is up.'

Dunst startled.

'What do you mean? I didn't do it... I loved the Centurion and I could never...'

'Save it for your counsellor, Sergeant. He may want to hear all your excuses but I don't. The evidence before me is damning. There was blood in the hinge of your knife. You tried to clean it, but you knew that you'd never be able to get rid of it all so you secreted it amongst Helo's things to implicate him. Your boots tell a similar story, blood caked in the mud that you failed to clean off.'

'But why?'

'Because you were jealous of Gregorin's attentions. Little Helo was supposed to go down for this, because he'd replaced you in the man's affections.'

Dunst paled, his breathing ragged.

'You haven't heard the best part yet,' Vaughn smiled, cruelly. 'We found Gregorin's blood, yes, but we also found the blood of Centurion Halwin. I'm arresting you on suspicion of two counts of murder and one count of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.'

Dunst passed out.

xxx

**Day 65**

Vaughn's work was never done, it seemed.

Centurion Occidar's adjutant had reported him missing later on the same day that Dunst was arrested. There was no trace to be found of the Centurion anywhere within the installation, not even a corpse.

A closer examination of his rooms indicated that he had packed a few essentials in a hurry and made himself scarce. Vaughn had no idea what could have incited the man to such a rash dereliction of his duties until he saw the scrap of paper that had blown into a corner of the room.

It was written in a spidery hand which looked like a deliberate attempt to frustrate any lexicographer that might examine it and said; "I know what you know. So I'm going to give you what Halwin got!"

Dunst had a motive for killing Halwin. His overprotective attitude over Gregorin was common knowledge, although it seemed a bit of an overreaction. He'd apparently killed Gregorin out of a fit of sudden jealousy. But why would he want to kill Occidar, the most unobtrusive member of Grantham's staff?

Vaughn found the answer in Occidar's journal. It was a veritable mine of dirty secrets. Occidar, it seemed, was a collector of other men's sleaze. He had a lengthy treatise on the nature of Gregorin's illicit relations with his men. Vaughn reasoned that Occidar was probably Grantham's spy-master, collecting information that the Primus Pilus could use to his own needs. But the journal was very careful not to implicate Grantham in any such way.

While Dunst had killed Halwin merely for arguing with his beloved Centurion, he had threatened Occidar because he'd found out the man was spying on him. For such a thing to be made public would surely ruin Gregorin's reputation. Vaughn wondered whether Dunst would have bothered sending the note at all if he'd known that he was going to end Gregorin's career himself.

None of that really mattered, of course. It hadn't changed the fact that Occidar had run. Deserted.

Vaughn had set about finding Occidar and bringing him to justice.

The trail was not difficult to pick up. Five Rivers was virtually cut off from the rest of Fered Roathi because of the war. Occidar's only viable escape route entailed him getting to the mainland, where he might be able to buy passage on a rogue trader. Reasoning that he had probably sneaked onto a supply shuttle, Vaughn went directly to the space-port with a security detail.

Occidar was found in a seedy taverna deep within the bowels of Garenda Spaceport. Upon sight of the silver Aquila on Vaughn's cap he'd bolted. Vaughn felt entirely justified in putting a bullet through the back of his head.

Occidar's military record was archive under AWOL;SE. Absent without leave; summarily executed.

xxx

**Day 66**

When it came to Vaughn's attention that Centurion Falcion had choked to death over dinner he was sorely tempted to certify it as a tragic accident right there and then. He was tired of police-work, he wanted to get back to the war. But Falcion's inner-circle were vociferous in their objections.

Falcion had been severely allergic to peanut-oil. The meal he had been served had contained a single stray peanut that he had apparently failed to notice before it was too late. But the kitchen-staff said they hadn't seen peanuts for months, not since the occupation. The circumstances were suspicious enough to warrant a full investigation.

Vaughn would have been the first to admit that his heart wasn't in it, but he did his best to delve into the matter.

It transpired that Falcion was an arrogant pig of a man. He'd made numerous enemies amongst his peers and a few of those would have been eminently capable of organising the contamination of Falcion's meal. Peanuts had been made readily available in the Officers Lounge so there was no way of narrowing the search from that angle.

The restaurant had a policy of serving all the meals for a table at the same time. As a result, those meals which were prepared quickest would be left to sit on a hot-shelf while the rest were processed. Falcion had ordered Salais of Squid, a local speciality that took less than three minutes to prepare. The meal had then been left unwatched for another twelve minutes. That was a long window of opportunity for anyone wanting to tamper with Falcion's food. As long as the saboteur knew which meal Falcion had ordered.

Vaughn was about to request a list of the guests at the restaurant that night, when he was reminded of a throw-away comment made by the man's friends. Salais of Squid was Falcion's favourite meal. When they ate at that particular restaurant he always ordered the squid.

Still no angle.

He half-heartedly interviewed a few of Falcion's less savoury rivals before signing the case off as an accident. The peanut could have easily been caught up in Falcion sleeve and thence fallen into his meal. At least that was his official conclusion. He privately suspected that Falcion had indeed met with foul play.

xxx

**Day 67**

The death of Grantham's nephew so soon after the demise of the rest of his command cadre seemed to pitch the Primus Pilus over some invisible cliff of despair. He was found in his rooms. He'd hung himself from the light-fitting with a length of cable cut from the wall. His suicide note, which the lexicographers confirmed was written in Grantham's own hand, recorded his belief that his inner circle had been deliberately dispatched as an act of intimidation.

Vaughn couldn't deny the almost impossible coincidence of the five deaths all taking place so close together. But he had a heap of circumstantial to put three of those deaths at the feet of Sergeant Dunst. Jurdisch was a casualty of war, while Falcion had fallen victim to some canny rival. There was no one thing that could be said to tie the deaths together.

Nevertheless, Grantham's last soliloquy nurtured the seeds of suspicion that had already been sown in his heart.

Draven reassured him that he'd done all he could, but Cadet-Commissar Vaughn was to remember the incident for the rest of his days as the most perplexing case he'd ever worked on.

xxx

**0430 hours, Day 67 – Commissar-General Draven's Private Office**

'I think you know why I've called this meeting.'

Draven had taken it upon himself to re-write the command structure of the Fifth Legion. He'd never known such an affliction of bad luck. The gathered Centurions of the Fifth seemed to agree with him as they nodded sagely.

Some of them looked eager, others were afraid of the responsibility Draven was about to hand out. One of them wore an expression of studied unconcern. Well, Centurion Escabar Corgan was about to become very concerned indeed, if Draven had anything to do with it.

'The assignment of a new Primus Pilus is not a thing to be taken lightly. I know this. The other commanders and I have been in conference all day, since the discovery of Centurion Grantham's suicide. We realised the importance of the decisions we had to make, but we also realised the importance of making them swiftly, lest the Fifth be left leaderless in a time of war.'

Draven was hedging. He knew the reaction wasn't going to be good.

'Centurion Princeps Prior Escabar Corgan, will you please stand and step forward?'

Corgan's expression never changed. He truly was a man of ice. Draven took the cherished pin-case from his breast pocket and removed the glimmering gold diamonds, stepping closer to Corgan.

'I hereby name you as Primus Pilus of the Fifth Orrax Penitent Legion. Wear these well!'

He pinned the twin badges of authority onto either collar of the man's uniform and stepped back. The room was eerily silent. Twenty nine men looked on in disbelief as the first penitent trooper in the history of the Orrax Foundings was awarded the rank of Primus Pilus; First Spear.

xxx

The Pigsty was a little busier, these days. At any one time there could but up to a third of the Imperial Guard's manpower taking their ease up on the Ridge. There was still work to be done, but mostly the soldiers were allowed to take their leisure. In a situation where even a simple patrol sequence could turn into a running battle, morale tended to run down easily. Draven was exercising a common-sense approach to combating it.

Corgan eased himself into the booth and Darron pushed a tankard of weak beer towards him.

'Congratulations, sir.'

A brief round of applause followed. Arines and Shopal made the most of it, knowing that he didn't like to be made a fuss of but insisting upon pulling his leg anyway.

'Thanks, fellas. Just keep it down, would you...'

Lita planted a big wet, beery kiss on his cheek.

'You know I love a man in authority. It really gets me going...'

'Alright, alright,' Arines called the table to order. 'We have business to discuss so let's all just give the man a chance to speak.'

'Thanks, buddy... but really, I just came for a beer...'

'But we want to know how you did it?' Shopal protested.

'Did what?'

'Got rid of the top-brass,' he hissed, covering his mouth to make sure no one else in the room could read his lips.

'I've never seen such artistry,' Arines added, stroking his newly trimmed moustaches.

'Well, boys,' Corgan smiled and winked. 'You know I'd love to tell you all about it. But I don't go giving away my trade secrets – who knows when you might use them against me...'

They laughed and let it lie. Corgan's rise to the top would be an urban legend some day, but for now it had to be kept quiet. It was too fresh in the memories of too many influential men to go around bragging about his master-piece.

They sat back and relaxed into their usual jocular exchange of frank opinions about Shopal's parentage. Time was too precious to waste, so they wasted it with abandon.

It was getting late when the noise in the Pigsty dropped to a low murmur. Corgan, who remained the most alert of his company due to his more abstinent nature, looked up to see what had caused the sudden drop in volume. He half expected to see the black-tops walking in to cart him away but instead he saw someone he hadn't expected ever to see again.

The man was caked in mud and mildew. He looked as if he'd crawled through a rotting swamp and met more than a few alligators along the way. White-lined eyes stared from a mud-caked face, casting about in weary urgency. When they met Corgan's it was with a flash of relief and recognition. The man staggered over, coming to within a couple of metres of their table before collapsing.

Corgan was at his side in an instant and pulled the man up into his lap.

'Biggs, are you okay? Where the hell have you been?'

The _yokel_ smiled and a wracking sound that had never before resembled laughter came from his parched lips.

'Hell... yeah, that's the place alright...' he replied, before falling into the blissful ignorance of unconsciousness.


	16. The Warp Wefts

**1710 hours, Day 67 – Sick Bay, Pelloris Ridge**

The medical facility housed within the main bunker had become a haven of comparative calm these days. The Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals had relocated to the delta-city to be closer to the casualties. They sent their patients up to the ridge to convalesce as they recovered from their injuries.

Corgan and Arines took Biggs there to get him checked over. Corgan grunted in mild surprise to recognise Orrics, the man that had tested his suitability for induction into the Legion. Orrics noticed the gold pins on Corgan's collar and allowed himself a wry smile.

'It doesn't matter how high you climb the ladder, Centurion, you'll never escape from authority...' he joked. Corgan wasn't in a smiling mood.

'My friend here just escaped from behind enemy lines. Check him over.'

Orrics cleared his throat and went to work.

Biggs was suffering from borderline malnutrition and exhaustion. Added to this was the mental toll of the extreme stresses he'd experienced. Orrics cleaned and bound a few cuts and bruises and removed a cluster of what looked like insect eggs from his ear before declaring him sound of body. He was prescribed three days bed-rest and a psych exam when he was physically recovered.

Corgan thanked Orrics and together with Arines helped Biggs back to his bunk. As they walked, Arines talked to him to try and keep him awake. Corgan wasn't so sure about the subject matter, but then he hadn't even thought about it in the first place.

'We thought you were a goner, mate. Dead as door-nails...' he exclaimed.

'I feel dead...' Biggs retorted. 'Corgan, you have to get me in to see the commissar. I saw and heard some terrible things in there... terrible things... and I think some of our boys might have been taken prisoner!' It was the longest single speech he'd made since his return and it was delivered with mounting urgency.

'Calm down, Biggs,' Corgan placated him. 'Let's get you back to the billets and you can tell me all about it.'

xxx

**2100 hours – Commissar-General Draven's Private Office, Pelloris Ridge**

'Your man is sound of mind, you think?'

'I believe so, sir. The psych exam will tell us for sure but Biggs isn't given to fantasies.'

Draven clicked his lips thoughtfully, mulling over the medical report Orrics had provided.

'The medicae said he was in pretty strung out shape. I think we'll wait for a formal examination before committing to anything.'

'I would tend to believe him, sir, though I'd prefer not to in some ways.'

'I know what you mean. We cannot dismiss this out of hand. If the enemy truly are making preparations for a ritual on the grand scale then it bodes ill for the war effort. It is incumbent upon us to approach it with a responsible attitude.'

Draven stood from behind his desk and walked to the window that overlooked the valley and out to sea. His rooms were situated in the only non-defensive structure to have multiple floors above ground.

'I have requested reinforcements. This news will increase our chances of being granted them and so I will give it my most urgent attention. But we cannot afford to be too hasty. The route by which your man escaped affords us an advantage that should not be squandered. But to use it when we are not prepared for the more dangerous elements of Biggs' story would be rash.'

'Sir, I can be in and out of there before the enemy even knows about it...'

Draven turned from the window and walked around to stand in front of Corgan. Their eyes locked.

'Do you remember what you said to me back on Orrax?'

Corgan nodded.

'Stand by those words now and I promise you we will do what can be done. I ask this not as your commanding officer, but as one good man to another, perhaps even as a friend. If you go in there now you will die for no other purpose than to make it impossible for those prisoners to be saved at all. If you wait they will stand a much better chance of coming out of there alive.'

He waited a moment to see that Corgan had absorbed all that he had said. After a moment he dismissed him, asking him to pass on his best wishes to Biggs.

xxx

**Aboard the Righteous Indignation, Cruising through the Pale Cloud Nebula**

'What news, Inquisitor?'

Brother-Sergeant Andros Geminon had long ago been dubbed the _Mountain_. Inquisitor Armenio could see the resemblance as the massive Grey Knight entered his private audience chamber. Even clad in a simple linen tunic and sandals he was an impressive sight.

'We have been diverted to Fered Roathi IV, my friend. I was asked to go, but now I am being ordered. Apparently there have been _developments_.'

'Is it _him_?'

'I think not. We're dealing with Word Bearers here, a splinter fleet out of the Varnum Cluster.'

'Ah,' Geminon rumbled as he seated himself. 'I've crossed swords with those reprobates before. Do we know which formation?'

'Reports indicate that it's the Third Enclave.'

Geminon smiled with his usual grim fatalism.

'Agostas Kionas. He and I have had dealings.'

'I'm afraid you missed your chance on that score. He's dead. It's not a positive ID but they've got his corpse on ice for my confirmation.' Geminon looked mildly disappointed. 'Do you know who his subordinates were?'

'I seem to remember one called Vargus, a potent psyker.'

'Well, at least their Dark Apostle is gone, things will go easier for us with him out of the way.'

Armenio sat back with a long-suffering sigh.

'You grow frustrated,' Geminon avowed.

'Yes. I'm sorry, old friend. I know it serves no purpose. It's just that we were so close...'

Creon will wait. Your agents know their work and will not let the trail grow cold. Besides, there can't be that many avenues for pursuit so far out on the fringes...'

'Perhaps not, but the encroaching Tyranid threat in that sector is a cause for great concern. Their machinations could so easily digest the trail altogether.'

'What is it you always used to say? I remember it nearly got you kicked out of the Inquisitorial Senate...'

Armenio smiled at the memory.

'The warp wefts as the warp will.'

'That's the one. I would advise you to listen to your own tenets, Inquisitor. Worry not, we will catch that bastard in the very act of his heresy and when we do I will visit the Emperor's divine retribution upon him. This was my eternal promise to you...'

Armenio was, as ever, comforted by Geminon's stolidity.

'Then let us bring this matter to a close as quickly as we may, Andros. I will call the staff together for a briefing during the next few days. The astropaths say we have upwards of a week before our arrival.

'My brethren and I will be prepared.'

xxx

**Time and Date; Unknown - Somewhere inside the Administratum Complex**

The darkness was almost complete. A slight red glow limned the scattering of inert bodies sprawled around the edges of the long-dry water-tank, originating from a pathetically weak halogen bulb in the ceiling and reflecting from the flaking iron oxide that caked the concave walls.

One of the figures was hunched up with his back to the wall, crouching opposite the hatch that occasionally opened to feed in fresh prisoners. Sometimes the traffic went the other way too, but they only took the living and left the dead to rot. You got used to the smell of decay after a few hours, and he had been here since time immemorial.

Somewhere up in the recesses of the tank the cultists had rigged up a speaker system. Through it they were feeding a stream of profane lies, designed to drive them all insane. It hadn't worked in the way they had intended, at least not in that solitary figure hunched in his accustomed spot opposite the hatch.. After a few days of confinement he had learned to ignore it, becoming inured to it just as he was no longer affected by the stench of decay or the horrors that he had borne witness to. The lies became as irrelevant as wasted breath, wasted effort. All that mattered was survival.

The soldier could no longer remember his name, only that he had once fought to deny the lies that assailed his ears. He fought still, for the scraps of food that the cultists occasionally remembered to toss in to keep them alive. If he hadn't been a fighter, he would have perished long ago. If you starved, you could no longer fight, if you couldn't fight, you fell prey to the other denizens of the water-tank prison. It was that simple.

When a prisoner died, sometimes even before they were fully dead, the weaker detainees would fall upon them and begin to devour them. It was a kind of survival instinct, but it was not one that the soldier had partaken in. It was wrong to eat people, this much he knew even in the animal state to which he had been reduced.

The door ground open and three figures entered, silhouetted against the harsh white light of the corridor outside that starkly illuminated the charnel scene within. The central figure was tossed from the raised platform to land on the mouldering heap of human offal that dominated the centre of the chamber, groaning in pain and despair.

A few of the cannibals crept forward, anticipating a fresh meal, but the figure spotted them and jumped up, displaying his prowess in ape-like fashion.

His eyes settled on the soldier in the instant before the light was shut out once more.

'Is that you Perri? It's me, Hicks! You remember me, don't you? We were in the same century up on the ridge...'

The words were meaningless to the soldier, who had forgotten what language was for. But as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light he saw three of the braver cannibals had continued to approach the man who still thought he was human. Almost as one they fell on him, sending him off balance.

The soldier hadn't understood the words, but one of them had moved something inside him. He didn't understand what recognition was and hope was an alien concept after such a long confinement and in such circumstances. But whatever it was it caused him to do something extremely unlike an animal. He leapt to the man's defence, kicking, scratching and biting until they backed off. He dragged the hapless speaker back to share his hard-won spot and dumped him, returning to his bestial crouch.

'Thanks, Perri. Thought I was a goner for sure.' the man said, casting about himself as his own eyes became accustomed to the lack of light.

'Been on the run for so long now,' he continued. 'Can't remember what it's like just to sit and jaw with a friend...'

When he received no reply he continued, content to just talk away to cover up the droning from the speaker above. That nameless _something_ continued to stir in the soldier's guts as he did so. A word sprang into the front of his brain; _memory_. He remembered something. He remembered something from the past, which happened a long time ago, before the water-tank. But it was like trying to catch smoke without a blanket.

The newcomer chattered on while the cannibals settled back on their haunches to wait for someone else to show weakness.

xxx

**1800 hours, Day 74 – Pelloris Ridge Airfield**

Corgan led the honour guard. He arrayed his men according to some civvy's idea of correctness along one edge of the landing field. Full dress uniform for a penitent trooper consisted of a combination of grey fatigues and combat jacket with a silver skull pin on the left breast, beneath the coloured strips representing their decorations. The officers each had a gold braid on their left shoulder to denote their rank.

Draven had finally taken the time to trawl through the massive amount of commendation reports. He and the Primus Pilus of each regiment had been quite thorough, investigating each recommendation before signing it off. Corgan had thought it a little unfair that he had been asked to investigate the commendations made by men he had only just done away with, but he put it down to poetic justice and got on with it.

It had proved a good opportunity to gauge the mettle of the men under his command. He'd made quite a few good solid contacts throughout the six remaining cohorts and felt a little better about leading them in the field when that time came.

As a result of this arduous process, Corgan's honour guard were quite colourful. He supposed it made up a little for the drabness of their uniforms.

Commissar-General Draven had turned out with his entire support staff from tactical advisers all the way down to office clerks to welcome the new arrivals. He had a look of anticipation on his aquiline features. Not for the first time, Corgan wondered who their reinforcements would be.

A small dark speck emerged from a cloud-bank some miles distant. Corgan was mildly disappointed to note that it was coming in alone. He'd at least expected a bulk transport or something substantial. But when the flier grew large enough to be recognised as a Thunderhawk Gunship his interest perked up a little. It would be nice to have some Astartes on their side for once.

The assault craft was matt black with a gold trim. Emblazoned on the side was the sigil of the Holy Ordos, the Inquisition. So that was why Draven was so keen and yet so nervous. He stood to lose a lot if the Inquisitor didn't like the way he'd prosecuted the conflict. Personally, Corgan thought the man had little to fear. He only hoped that his own machinations within the Fifth would be too petty for the Inquisitor to waste his time on. Otherwise he would be in trouble, albeit briefly.

The Thunderhawk settled on the rockrete landing pad, billowing their uniforms in the down-draft. After a moment's pause the front-facing exit ramp eased open with the grinding of ancient gears.

Corgan's interest was transformed to sheer, unadulterated awe when he saw the five figures that formed the Inquisitor's vanguard. Clad in gargantuan and ornate suits Terminator plate in grey and gold, with their nemesis force weapons shouldered, the loyalist Astartes had come to Fered Roathi.

Behind them, Inquisitor Armenio was clad in his crimson power armour beneath his great-coat, the symbol of the Ordos emblazoned in gold upon his chest. Beside him strode his human retinue; a woman, tall, dark and and lithe and utterly deadly; a tech-adept, with no less than four mechadendrites arcing over his shoulders and two scarlet robed acolytes whose features were hidden within their cowls.

Draven stepped forward and bowed.

'Greetings Lord Inquisitor. I am Commissar-General Draven. Welcome to Fered Roathi and may I express my eternal gratitude for your timely arrival.'

'I live to serve the Emperor's will, Commissar, and your needs are great. Consider it my duty to perform. May I introduce Andros Geminon of the Order of the Grey Knights. His brothers are Helios, Adrinar, Septius and Garmos. These others are Shalta Parnassus, Levi Kursch and the twins, Hex and Ascha Lauren.'

Draven took his turn introducing his foremost advisers. He also drew Corgan forward to present him to the Inquisitor. The Centurion wouldn't have thanked him for it and Armenio didn't seem to give a damn. There was a hurried air about him.

'Perhaps you should give me a full briefing on the situation, Commissar-General. The sooner we deal with your vermin problem, the sooner I can continue with my business.

xxx

**1810 hours – Commissar-General Draven's Private Office**

'The foundations of the complex, as with most substantial structures in Five Rivers, are built upon pilings driven deep into the somewhat soggy ground of the delta. It seems that our man escaped by finding a way into these sink-levels and navigating his way to freedom.'

Armenio held up a hand.

'I understand he then managed to avoid detection even as he made his way back into this installation?'

'Yes sir. He reported directly to his commanding officer before collapsing.'

'So a starving, exhausted soldier not only managed to escape the enemy stronghold, but then followed this up by infiltrating his own base without raising the alarm?' asked the Grey Knight sergeant.

'It would appear so, my lord.'

'Sounds like quite a capable fellow,' was Armenio's pronouncement. 'Or perhaps your security measures are not what they should be. Continue.'

'The man in question attests to his ability to lead a cadre of infiltrators back into the complex via these tunnels, allowing them to engage in rescue operations. It is also feasible that you could yourself access the complex by this means, in order to cut off the head of our enemy and interrupt any ritual that may be underway.'

'How do we know that what this soldier says is true?' asked Geminon. 'How do we know that he has not been corrupted by the enemy?'

Corgan almost leapt to his feet in outrage.

'I think I will speak to this man myself before we go any further,' Armenio pronounced, rising from his chair.

Corgan was in front of him in an instant. Armenio displayed a moment's perplexity at the speed with which he moved, but this was quickly covered over by his veneer of detachment.

'If you hurt him,' Corgan growled. 'You'll answer to me...'

Something hard batted him aside, sending him crashing into the wall as though he were nothing more than a bundle of rags. It felt like a boulder had fallen on his head. As his senses began to clear he found himself swallowed by the shadow cast by Andros Geminon.

'And for you insolence, _you_ will answer to _me_...'

Corgan put a tentative hand to the side of his head. Biggs was on his own.

The Inquisitor led the Grey Knight out of the room and Draven folded his arms across his chest. There was a hint of amusement in his voice as he said; 'That was probably ill-advised, my friend.'

xxx

**1905 hours – Inquisitor Armenio's Quarters**

Contrary to popular perception, Armenio wasn't the kind of Inquisitor that subjected his interviewees to compulsory torture. He found it much easier and less time-consuming to ask a few questions before resorting to the Inquisition's staple.

He sat Biggs down in the antechamber to his rooms. It was far more stark than he would have wished, but time was pressing and he couldn't afford to waste it in making this man feel a little more comfortable in his presence. He did what he could by pouring the man a measure of expensive brandy and offering him a cigar from the simple wooden box he carried around with him.

'Do you smoke?'

'No sir, but... if I may ask, is that charwood?' he indicated the box itself. Armenio had always found that the wood added to the flavour of the cigars, imbuing them with a pleasant, woody pungency that never failed but to cool his humour.

'It is,' he smiled. 'You were a carpenter in a former life?'

'No lord, a woodsman on Wheylan 2076. I grew up amongst the charwood forests.'

'Ah, then you should take one merely for the scent, I think. I have some plastek evidence bags around here somewhere, I'll have one sealed up for you.'

Biggs seemed taken aback by the Inquisitor's affable nature, but his minimal reaction showed Armenio that he was the solid, dependable sort. Not the least bit impressionable. It boded well for the man's future. He was respectful, but unafraid. Armenio had experienced a similar measure of surprise at the man frank question. He was beginning to warm to the fellow. It was so rare to find someone who didn't cringe in the face of the Inquisition.

'Let's get down to business.' Armenio took a seat. He had shed his power armour in favour of a simple crimson robe. It was far less intimidating and he found that it took less of a toll on the shoddy furniture that he had been lumbered with.

'What do you want to know, lord?'

'Please, call me by my name. Armenio.' He held out a hand and Biggs shook it firmly and without hesitation.

'How did you cope with the loss of your men?'

Biggs took a moment to think about the question, a furrow in his darkly handsome brow as he remembered.

'I took it hard. I wanted to be the one that sold his life dearly, but they wouldn't let me.'

'You men wouldn't let you? Why did you not simply order them to let you?'

Again that thoughtful pause.

'Because I realised that I wasn't ready to die.'

Armenio let the comment hang, wanting to know if the man would claim some divine hand guiding his fate, or whether he would be honest instead.

'I was deported to Orrax for poaching, lord. The winter had been cruel and my family was starving. I did what I had to in order to put food on the table. I was punished for the crime of ensuring that my family, my wife and son, my two daughters survived another season. I realise that in my desperation I surely condemned them. Unless someone took pity upon them they will not have survived another winter.'

Armenio let the man talk. He obviously wanted to get something off his chest. It might help him to judge the quality of the man's character, no matter how far from the point it may be.

'The draft gave me an opportunity to escape the brutality of the ice-mines, but I expected the dehumanisation of my fellow volunteers to remain a constant. I never realised that war could make someone _more_ human.'

Armenion nodded, knowing full well that it could work both ways. He had seen men reduced to animals for a time only to emerge from the crucible of war remade men.

'One of my men, Cotaz, was a multiple murderer. He used to beat people to death with his bear fists because he liked the sound of breaking bones. This was the man that offered to give his own life in order to destroy the communications spine.

'My vox man, Fullar, was the kind of man who wouldn't say boo to a goose. And yet he accompanied Cotaz because he was the only one that could identify the master terminus and make their sacrifice count. I realised that I could not bring myself to do such a thing, and so I did what I could to cover their gambit and made my escape. I was a coward.'

Armenio held up a finger.

'And yet you have volunteered top lead us back in – this may very well amount to the same kind of sacrifice. You are no coward, sir.'

He stood and gestured for Biggs to follow suit..

'The Emperor works his will in mysterious ways. It was not your time to die and so you survived. If you had not then victory in this theatre may not have been possible. I receive your earnest confession as a representative of the Emperor's himself and hereby absolve you of your guilt.' He held up his glass for a toast. 'The Emperor protects!'

The glasses chinked and both men partook of their libations to the Emperor's divine will.

xxx

**Time and Date; unknown – Somewhere inside the Administratum Complex**

The man called Hicks held his head in his hands. He was making a strange choking sound and water was coursing down his cheeks and dripping from his chin. The soldier – he had tried thinking of himself as Perri but it was still proving a difficult concept – put a grubby hand on the man's shoulder. He had a vague, uncomfortable sensation buzzing around his head.

'They'll come for us, Perri,' Hicks sobbed. 'They won't leave us here to die.'

Perri still hadn't fathomed who the man was referring to, but he understood death. He would fight it until he couldn't fight any longer, but from his point of view, death was the only inevitability left to them.


	17. Rats in the Pipes

_Been a long time since my last update so here's a little tidbit for you to whet your appetites on. The feast is yet to come but I working through a bit of a block at the moment. Hopefully it should be ready soon. Enjoy! - Matt

* * *

**0800 hours, Day 77 – Administratum Sub-Levels**_

'Be alert, my brothers,' Andros urged, needlessly. 'They may not have known about these tunnels when our guide escaped, but there's nothing to say they haven't found them since.'

The Grey Knights advanced down the mouldering tunnel, heading up the insurgent party under the sure-footed guidance of Biggs. The tunnels were lined with pipes and conduits, many of them rusted and broken, spilling long-dead cabling and runnels of drainage ooze. Grille-work walkways rang hollow under the heavy tread of the Grey Knight's

Their surroundings, the artifice of man, had reverted through the long years of desertion to a form of underground wilderness that woke primordial echoes of a pre-civilised epoch. Reverting to type, they advanced into the darkness with all the tightly sprung caution of ancient Neanderthal man, ready to react at an instant's notice to any threat that manifested itself. The Astartes were most at home here, gen-engineered as they were to be ever-ready fighting machines. The rest of the party did their best to ignore the lingering tremor between their shoulder-blades.

The man-made structures around them had succumbed to the corrosion of nature. Massive polyps of glowing fungus provided the only light, adhering to the walls to absorb the mineral rich moisture that seeped down from the sewers and the great rivers somewhere above them. Crustacean molluscs lived out their lives digesting the silicates in the pipe-work, great globules of living mucus protected within rigid, calcified shells, breeding by means of slimy tendrils and being consumed from within by their voracious young. The largest of these was bigger than Geminon's boulder-like head.

Creatures even less savoury skittered in the recesses, their place at the top of the food chain briefly usurped by the passage of the Astartes. Biggs had seen some of them on his previous journey through the sink-levels. Huge great porcupine-rats with spines dripping with venom. Roaches as long as his arm that preyed upon the smaller, swarming insects. Bats festooned many of the recesses in the ceiling, their dried guano encrusting the grille-work floors, crackling underfoot.

Coming to a collapsed section in the corridor, Geminon and his brothers were forced to form a living bridge through a sea of churning beetles. The Astartes were black with them as they clambered up at the other side. Each of them had to momentarily electrify his armour to discourage them from clogging up the ventilator units, sending showers of dead beetles cascading from their gargantuan forms to lie twitching where they fell.

'That was an experience I'd rather not repeat,' Armenio declared as Geminon took point once more.

Shalta Parnassus prodded Biggs in the arm to get his attention. She wasn't big on social skills.

'You! You crawled through that?' she asked in her heavily accented tones.

He nodded.

'They're harmless enough. You just have to keep your head above the surface and keep them out of your ears and nose if they manage to crawl up.'

'They try and get inside?'

Again he nodded, masking his amusement at her discomfiture. He didn't reckon she'd take well to being laughed at.

'The females will try to lay their eggs wherever they can. I had to strip at the other side to get them out of my clothing, otherwise I would have been fighting off infestation as we speak….'

She turned from him with a look of disgust on her refined features. Biggs took a moment to enjoy the way she walked as she pulled ahead of him.

'You alright, there Biggsy?' Darron slapped him on the shoulder and fell into step alongside.

'Well enough, considering our prospects.'

'I know what you mean, but I feel better having some marines on our side for once.'

They continued in silence for a few moments, each lost in his own thoughts. Biggs was first to break the companionable silence.

'Do you ever have regrets, Darron?'

'Some. Not many, though. I didn't get much choice about ending up where I did.'

'Funny, that. I don't think many of us did…' Biggs smiled.

Then Geminon called for directions and the brotherly exchange was gone like smoke in the wind.

xxx

**0700 hours – Western Terminus, Five Rivers**

Corgan looked out from the control tower of the Western Terminus, taking in the expanse of the Progressus Imperius and the Administratum fortress. He didn't want to be here. He wanted to be underground with his boys, where his underhive instincts would have served the rescue mission well. But Draven had been adamant.

'You forget yourself, Centurion,' he had said. 'Your place as First Spear is at the forefront of your Legion. Others will take on the burden of rescue.'

At least he had allowed Corgan to select the team. He'd had to reorganise the century anyway after their last mission. Arines had got that dreaded promotion to Centurion after all, stepping into the vacant shoes of Second Century's leadership. Lita had second squad and Frocar, back in action at long last, was heading up the third. Fourth squad had been a more difficult decision. Once again Corgan had found himself with a choice between Biggs and Darron. In the end he'd settled on the latter. Biggs was still traumatised after losing his last unit to a man. He didn't need that kind of stress just yet. It was Fourth squad that had earned the dubious honour of taking on the rescue mission.

It wasn't much of a Century any more, he reflected, but what remained of it was rock hard.

The rest of the Legion was new territory, for Corgan. He'd got to know a couple of the new Pilus Priors through the process of awarding them their commendations, but he still felt like they resented his authority. It was worse since he'd awarded Arines his promotion. The hard-line Wardens probably thought they were seeing the regiment go to the dogs. Corgan had a different opinion of course.

Centurion Ferriks was going to be a problem. Halwin had bred a healthy disdain into his second that would be hard to break. Likewise with Grein, Jurdisch's successor. The man still thought he was walking the beat back on the streets of Hive Trachiad. The others might not present too many challenges, but time would tell.

Corgan had the comfort of knowing that he was the supreme authority in this particular field of operations. Draven and the other Primes would be fighting at the Eastern Portico but he had assigned Vaughn to undertake the disciplinary role. Draven had made it very clear that the young cadet would be there in the sole capacity of commissar, with no command rank. Corgan would have preferred not to have the boy with him at all, but the choice was not his to make.

He looked up at the daunting façade of the western gate, ornate with its flying buttresses and gargoyles. Every alcove and window could and would contain the heavy weapons crews of the enemy. Every pool of shadow would spit death at them with all the hatred of the warp. What other horrors they would face he did not know, but the Fifth Legion would face them down with the stolidity for which they had become so famous in such a short time.

'What's taking so long,' he grumbled.

Wheln shrugged with his customary indifference. Day sixty-one had changed the boy as it had changed them all. He had an ineffable hardness to him that made him look more like a man than the boy he really was. He had that "nothing can touch me!" aura about him. He hoped it didn't get the kid killed.

Shopal grinned. He'd had that hard edge to him long before the ridge and day sixty one had only made it harder, but it had never dampened his sense of humour.

'I'd rather be waiting than dying, boss.'

'And I've never been good at standing around doing nothing,' Corgan replied.

Pars held out a packet of cigars. They were thin and black and they stank of burning tar.

'Smoke?'

Corgan took one and let the man light it for him.

'Throne! Where'd you score these from?' Corgan spluttered, retching smoke while the others rolled back with laughter..

'Nice, eh?'

'Frakking awful! I'd rather smoke a twig!'

But he didn't toss the stick or hand it back. He wedged it into the angle of his jaw and chewed thoughtfully as they waited. After a couple of draws he became accustomed to the tar-soak, realising that it helped if you didn't take it back but rather let the smoke coat the inside of his mouth before expelling it. After a few minutes he eyed Pars sidelong with the hint of a smile.

'You gonna share your source with me, or what?' Corgan asked.

Pars winked, ignoring Shopal's braying amusement.

'Don't worry, boss, we get out of this bone-yard alive and I'll sort you out.'

'We've got a message coming through,' Wheln piped up, keying the phones active. 'Commissar wants to talk to you…'

xxx

Vaughn had been making the rounds, inspecting the troops, when the runner caught up with him requesting that he join Corgan at the front. The Fifth was in surprisingly determined humour considering the last few turbulent weeks. They were shaping up to be a fine, if a little unpolished, unit, though Vaughn still puzzled over the mysterious deaths of the command echelon.

He started toward the front-line, turning his thoughts toward the day to come. If he was entirely honest with himself, he was looking forward to getting back into the fight. But he wasn't devoid of nerves either. Immune as he may have become to the general horrors of war, he knew that this final phase of the repatriation process was going to be by far the toughest and the least pretty.

As he approached Corgan's command tank he tugged his cap down more firmly over his forehead. He intended to do the office of commissar a great service, this day. He intended to earn his full commissariat ranking or die trying.

Suddenly and without warning the guns at the rear opened up, bombarding the façade of the Portico with their earth-shaker cannons. The predawn murk burst into vivid flames. He ran the rest of the way, knowing that it wouldn't be long before the enemy responded in kind.

Corgan's Salamander, an open-topped version of the Chimera, seemed scant protection to the cadet-commissar, but the Primus Pilus seemed oblivious to the danger, standing tall in the front of the crew compartment.

'Did you order the barrage to begin?' Vaughn shouted.

Corgan gave him a look that said "of course I bloody did!" reminding Vaughn of his place. Being apprenticed to a Commissar-General had its disadvantages in that the command aspect tended to rub off. Vaughn had no command rank. He was a moral leader rather than a tactical decision maker.

'How are we going to play this?' he asked, refusing to look or sound apologetic.

'Just like Pelloris Ridge,' Corgan replied. 'There's only one way in so we throw everything we've got at it.'

Vaughn zipped his trap. Such tactical genius could only have come from the lips of an ex-pen. Then again, Vaughn remembered the briefing. This was a holding action, designed to give the insurgency force time and space to frag things up from the inside out. They weren't expected to make any real gains.

'Where do you need me?' He asked, straining to make himself heard over the din. He half expected Corgan to send him as far from himself as possible, but the man of ice just smiled his cold, cold smile.

'Right here will do nicely… until further notice, at least. We sound the charge in roughly eight minutes and your inspiring presence will be required, Commissar.'

Vaughn stepped back and watched as Corgan made his final preparations. The vehicles of the First and Second Centuries were drawn up in a long front-line, two tanks deep. Behind these the Third Century had been formed into heavy weapons teams and deployed in stripped down Salamanders. Their weapons had been jury rigged to pintle-mounts. They would advance behind the front-line, picking out and pinning down any emplacements that gave the front-line trouble. The Fourth and Fifth Centuries would circle in from the left and right flanks and would hopefully escape the more stringent attentions concentrated around the Portico. The Sixth would hover behind the Third, ready to plug any gaps or to stall any units the enemy managed to deploy from the smaller gateways some distance to the north and south.

The Commissar had to admit that the plan looked sound. Given such a straight-forward objective it was difficult to point out many flaws.

One thing did occur to him, however. During the assault on the delta the Sixth Legion had been decimated by assault squads equipped with jump-packs, falling upon them from above. Vaughn felt it prudent to warn Corgan about the possibility of the same tactic being used. To his great surprise, Corgan nodded and issued orders to the Third Century to watch the skies. He also sent a message to Draven, just in case the survivors of the Sixth had forgotten the fate of their brothers.

Vaughn felt a surge of confidence. It was good to feel useful once more.

The bombardment continued even after Corgan sounded the charge, doing its best to bring down the gates shutting them out. As the vehicles of the Fifth Orrax Penitent lurched into forward motion, the enemy began their response.

It was paltry at first, but before long the big guns that they had managed to salvage opened up. The Progressus Imperius began its transition from parade ground to graveyard.

xxx

**0705 hours – somewhere inside the Administratum Complex**

'You feel that?' the Hicks-man hissed.

Perri felt it, alright. The floor and walls were vibrating. The entire tank shuddered and lurched, intermittently. A booming reverberation, renewed every few seconds, shook red flakes of rust free from the walls and pipes. The cannibals began to tremble and moan in paroxysms of primal fear.

'You hear that?' Hicks-man yelled, jumping up and down and waving his arms with excitement. 'They're coming for us man! I told you they'd frakkin' well come for us!'

Whooping and leaping like a mad thing, the Hicks-man danced around the circular chamber, scaring the mindless cannibals even more.

The noise and vibration was such that the first they knew of the arrival of the cultists was the blast of white light cascading through the hatch.

They trained those things called weapons on the occupants and barked at them in their incomprehensible idiom. Hicks-man leapt back, his joy transformed to purest horror. Both emotions were as unfathomable to Perri as each other. When they came to take him, he fought as he had fought before. But they were stronger and easily subdued him, fastening blood-crusted manacles around his wrists and looping him onto a long chain.

Hicks was bound up behind him. He was making that horrible choking sound again and water was once more running from his eyes. It sounded like he was trying to speak, but his words were as alien as those marked by the cruel-handed cultists.

The light hurt Perri's eyes and the sores on his feet sent pain shooting up his legs as the long march began.

xxx

**0705 hours – Administratum Sub-Levels**

Geminon hesitated.

'It has begun.'

Armenion nodded sagely.

'We must make haste.'

xxx

**0737 hours – Western Portico**

The Western Portico blazed. Molten slag ran from the super-hot fires to pool in bizarre, rapidly cooling stalactite formations. Enemy fire stitched down from the higher windows, but the larger cannons had fallen silent, denied viable targets by the Fifth Legion's proximity to the gate.

Vaughn had been forced to chase the front line on foot when their Salamander had been hit and disabled. He had a shallow cut on his left cheek from the shrapnel. Corgan had hitched a ride on a vehicle in the second rank with his vox-man, but Vaughn had been dazed and fallen behind.

It was fortunate that he had. As he had foretold, the Word Bearer's Raptors had made their appearance, targeting the heavily armed Third Century in an attempt to cut the infantry's heavy support out of the equation. Vaughn had held them together when the assault came to land in their very midst. The mobile flak had reduced their numbers, but the Traitor Marines were led by one of their zealots and refused to back off.

The casualty rate had been alarming, but thanks to the quick response of the reserve line they had managed to hold firm. Vaughn and Centurion Grein had jointly dispatched the Dark Apostle and sent the remaining Astartes into retreat. Grein's autocannon teams had immediately taken a heavy toll on the survivors in revenge.

Now, as they closed with the gaping gates, Corgan was busily trying to force a wedge of armour into the breach. The air was dry and crackling with autolaser discharge and it hummed with the barking of heavy bolters. In and amongst the advancing armour, teams of infantry, bereft of their transports, braved the hail of return fire, sheltering between the Chimeras and adding their concentrated las-fire to the assault.

Vaughn helped Grein to split the Third down the middle and set them up beneath the massive columns that supported the Portico itself, making room for the Sixth to form up between them as the other Centuries held forth the assault. Before long, the heavy weapons platoons were doing their best to fill the air with explosive shrapnel.

He was impressed by the efficiency with which the Third operated. The fire-teams had been well drilled in the operation of their new equipment. The overlapping fields of fire would keep the enemy ducking as Corgan drove home his wedge.

Briefly, he wondered how the battle was proceeding elsewhere. He wondered if it was proving as easy as this in the east, and whether or not Armenio and his retinue had found what they sought within.

xxx

**0759 hours – Administratum Sub-Levels**

'It's just up ahead. There should be guards posted, but there isn't usually more than three or four,' Biggs hissed.

Geminon nodded. He and his brethren had given way to their guide and his friends, whose feet trod somewhat lighter than theirs. He turned to Darron with his instructions.

'Move up and silence them,' he said. 'We will follow you in. Let none escape.'

Darron nodded and flicked off the safety on his lasgun. He nodded to Pullas and Dror, indicating that they follow Biggs on point. Collan, Toal and Innes he kept at his side.

They advanced up the corridor, careful not to make too much noise on the grille-work floor as they went. Biggs and the other two were dim shapes up ahead, advancing cautiously. Before long they came to a halt. Biggs sent Dror to watch a side corridor and Pullas to guard another while he tip-toed toward a narrow door. He dived through it and disappeared from view.

Darron had expected to hear the discharge of las-fire. Instead he saw Biggs emerge from the door with a perplexed expression on his face. Darron and the others moved up.

'Nothing,' Biggs elaborated.

'Where's the hatch? Maybe they were called away to fight…'

Biggs pointed to a square hatch with a rusted wheel in its centre. The rust had flaked away in places to show that it had been in use after a period of long neglect.

'Open it up!'

Toal and Collan went to work on the valve as Geminon filled the outer doorway with his massive bulk.

'What, no guards?'

Biggs shrugged.

The hatch screeched open, releasing the stench of decaying offal and rancid blood.

'There is nothing living within that chamber,' Geminon declared.

Toal braved a glance, covering his nose with his sleeve. He re-emerged to agree with the Grey Knight's appraisal even as Armenio caught up with them.

'They have moved the prisoners.' Geminon informed him.

'The assault has hastened their plans. We were not quick enough.' He turned to Andros Geminon and gave a sombre, meaningful nod.

Geminon gathered himself up, flexing his Terminator armoured form and breathing a massive sigh, releasing his store of pent up frustration. He turned to his brothers, lined up single file in the narrow corridor outside. At Geminon's nod they activated their nemesis force weapons as one, adding the low cadence of thrumming energy in syncopation with the bombardment vibrating the walls. The clacking timpani of their storm-bolters' auto-loaders beat out the rhythm of war.

'The time for stealth has passed, my brothers. Let the flames of the Emperor's wrath burn bright! To war!'

xxx

**0800 hours – Western Portico**

Corgan dropped back behind the barricade. The cultists and their Astartes leaders had fallen back, deeper into the massive entrance chamber to man more permanent defences. The wedge was stalled, but it had done its work. They were in.

He was about to call Grein in to establish some covering fire when a coruscating light flared at the centre of the open area. It seemed to centre on a pole topped with a strange icon and sent some kind of electrical discharge arcing out to earth itself in scattered formations of conductive rubble.

The fabric of reality seemed to twist, distorting his view of the enemy positions beyond. Within the distortion a multitude of lights began to pulsate in all the colours of the spectrum. With a sound like that fabric of reality tearing open, the lights took physical form and were dumped onto the rubble-strewn mall.

They took a multitude of forms. Twisted wisps of corporeal flesh bounding on all manner of tentacles and limbs, with tooth-ringed mouths gnashing or lolling long tongues, dripping with steaming ichor. Long-legged she-devils with the claws of crustacean monstrosities and tentacles for hair. Horned devils with red skin and burning eyes, encrusted in brass banding and carrying insubstantial swords that were little more than black slashes in the fabric of corporeality. Multi-coloured molluscs screaming headlong towards them, shooting flames from their limbs and mouldering, swollen corpses festooned with grubs and insects.

Corgan couldn't move. He'd never seen anything like this. They'd been briefed even before the campaign began on the horrors that the Word Bearers were wont to throw at them. But no amount of telling could encompass the experience of seeing it with his own eyes.

Cadet-Commissar Vaughn appeared at his side.

'What's this, Centurion?' he cried, brandishing his bolt-pistol and chainsword. 'Do you intend to fight or will you let these abominations devour your very soul?'

He leapt atop the barricade, chainsword held high above his head.

'Men of Orrax!' he bellowed, 'Children of the Emperor's divine mercy! Up! Up, I say! Rise up and transcend the insane!'

The sight of the little commissar leaping down and charging headlong at the denizens of the warp was enough to break Corgan's reverie. With Wheln and Shopal at his side he followed Vaughn into the fray, ignorant of the chattering guns of the Word Bearers and their minions, intent only on banishing these abominations back to the warp where they belonged.

The Fifth Legion surged forward like an unstoppable tsunami of flesh, blood, bone and metal. Not one of them faltered nor shirked his duty. Not one of them expected to survive the day.


	18. To the Heart of the Matter

**0830 Hours – at the heart of the Administratum Complex**

Vargus Hellborn looked up at the construct with something akin to fatherly pride. The cyclopean nave of the Tempellum Corpus Santa Carsi had been transformed in the weeks since he and his brethren had arrived here. The Great Work was almost complete.

The Pillar of Souls had fit beneath the great cupola so well that it was almost as if it had been wrought for this very purpose. Massive chains, the links thicker than Hellborn's arms, joined the capital to the original columns that upheld the temple's roof. From almost all of those links a human form dangled like puppets lacking the hands to make them move. Many of these forms were mere corpses, dead of starvation, exposure or terror itself. Their souls had already been taken into the pillar of black obsidian that was so out of place in this holy sanctum. It was alive with their incorporeal vitality and gave off an aura of absolute corruption that made Hellborn's toes tingle with delight. Those that yet lived would soon taste the ecstasy of the Translation.

The Whisperer would be made manifest and the tendrils of corruption that Vargus had nurtured here on this forsaken backwater planet would flourish. With this work complete, nothing would be able to stop the planet from falling from grace, utterly and completely.

A hundred insular heretical cults existed across the surface of Fered Roathi, harbouring mutants and rogue psykers, recidivists and malcontents. The Whisperer would activate those cells with his Translation from the warp and mayhem would erupt across the continents, sending Fered Roathi spiralling down into darkness and despair.

The Whisperer would serve a second purpose. Its warp-presence, a vast and irresistible turbulence in the immaterium, would disrupt all psionic activity throughout the system. Psykers, both latent and trained would be driven insane by interminable visions of pure chaos. Only those initiated into the ways of the Dark Gods would survive. The rest would likely take their own lives or go on a rampage that would see them killed like dogs after wreaking unparalleled havoc.

It would be beautiful!

The carnage and chaos would render the Imperium's efforts at repatriation vain, even if they did manage to somehow banish the Whisperer. By the time Translation was complete it would be too late. The shock-wave of violence would engulf an entire planetary system for decades to come. All they had to do was finish the Rites of Summoning and Vargus Hellborn's name would be remembered for an eternity in the Books of Lorgar.

The Arch-Castigator approached him subserviently, his eyes permanently watering due to constant exposure to the elements. He had no eye-lids. He had removed them himself that he might look upon the glory of Chaos Undivided for the rest of his pitiful existence unblinking.

'Are the souls gathered?' Hellborn inquired.

'We have enough to finish the rites, my lord. We only await your observance.'

'This is good. Time is short and I would see Fered Roathi burn in the fires of perdition. Let us awaken the Sleeper in the Dark'

He followed the cultist over to the last of the chains that still had empty links. Seven great loops of black iron hung there, close to the floor, waiting for a sacrifice. The groaning of those most recently strung up was like a litany of praise to Hellborn's ears – praise to the fell entities of the warp.

Beyond the defiled column to which the chain was attached, a chain-gang of sorry, bedraggled prisoners was being held by his bodyguard Vrael, a behemoth in gore-hued Terminator armour that writhed with the sigils of the warp.

The quality of these souls mattered not to Hellborn. Nor would the Whisperer care, which was just as well because some of these had been reduced to little more than animals. One of them looked to have retained some vestige of humanity, but was cowering and crying out to his corpse-god in abject terror. The man chained next to him looked, if anything, defiant in a bestial kind of way. Hellborn recognised the filthy rags they wore as belonging to the Imperial soldiers that even now threatened to tear down his great works. He smiled. These he would save till last, the better to savour their screams.

'String them up!' he intoned, and the Arch-Castigator's cultist brethren went to work, binding the prisoners with accursed ropes that would constrict their breathing but leave them whole and alive as they dangled. The ropes had been treated with sacred unguents, prepared in just the right way so as to conduct the souls of the dying into the chains and thence into the heart of the black column itself.

As the prisoners were mounted onto the chains, Hellborn began to recite the necessary verses from the Book of Lorgar. He had learned them by rote in the course of his preparations. His words would not falter. After all, he had an assignation with destiny.

xxx

When it came, the Word Bearer's counter attack was swift and bloody. Seven traitor Astartes led a host of more than two hundred cultists against the insurgency force, ambushing them as they forged into the guts of the Administratum hub.

Armenio and his psykers had found, through a hastily arranged auto-seance, that their destination was at the very loci of a palpable warp disturbance, somewhere above them, in the heart of the Administratum hub. This seemed to fit with that knowledge that Biggs' had managed to garner during his escape, but he had never been very clear on the details. According to maps they had managed to acquire, the loci of this disturbance centred on the Ecclesiarchy's headquarters within the complex, the Church of the Body of Saint Carsi.

They had ascertained that in order to reach the Tempellum, they would need to find a freight elevator that would give them access to the upper levels of the Central Spire. The Word Bearers had been waiting for them there.

The antechamber was little more than a warehouse, stacked high on either side with iron packing crates and smaller supply cartons, affording the Word Bearer's and their serfs an excellent opportunity for ambush. Fortunately, though they were making haste, Geminon's innate sense of mistrust meant that he'd identified the risk as soon as he saw it on the map. His strategy had been to split their meagre forces between the three identifiable entrances into the warehouse. Darron and his squad had moved around to the easterly approach routes while two of his battle brothers took the other. With the rest of his squad, Geminon would execute a full frontal assault before the other two forces showed their hands. He hoped that this would put the enemy off balance and force them to split their concentration of fire.

Geminon himself, with Armenio and his retinue in tow, assaulted the main cargo entrance, a massive ramped roadway that linked to the Southern Portico. It was deserted – suspiciously so. The party approached the portal with caution, expecting any second to come under heavy fire.

His internal chronometer pipped in his ear, indicating the agreed moment to launch their assault. He muttered a quick prayer that the other two teams had managed to get into position then sounded the charge.

Lasfire whipped out to greet them as they crossed the open ground and burst into the vaulted edifice. Geminon zoned in on the nearest source and hosed the area with a storm of bolter fire. Solid rounds spanged from his plate and las singed the paintwork, but Geminon was all but invulnerable in his Terminator armour. He strode through the sheets of hostile fire, pinning down concealed cultists with controlled bursts of return fire.

They fell back as he advanced, too close for comfort. He and his brothers brought them down quickly and efficiently.

A sudden sheet of flame lit the deeper recesses of the warehouse, flaming testimony to the arrival of Helios and Adrinar. An exodus of blazing cultists broke into the open only to be brought down by the crossfire of their own men.

Geminon's awareness of the battle was at its highest pique. He registered the sounds of warfare and processed them as only a living computer can. The noise created by the cultists' weapons were a pell-mell of different frequencies and rhythms. He knew exactly the moment when Darron and his squad entered the fight. Their weapon-sound was more uniform, much quieter due to their silenced muzzles but not silent enough to be drowned out to Geminon's heightened awareness. The Guardsmen had timed their arrival to perfection. He would have to remember to pay the Decurion his respects.

The plan was working so far, but he knew that the real work was still to do. He estimated that almost eighty cultists had been slain, but he knew that these were but a smoke screen for the Word Bearers themselves. The real resistance would come when they tried to take the elevator itself.

He took a moment to issue a reminder to his brothers as they came together in the centre of the chamber.

'Remember, we need to take at least one of the Traitors alive.'

According to the plan, Darron and his squad took up position to provide covering fire with Armenio and his retinue while the Grey Knights pressed home the assault. The elevator door stood open and was piled with sturdy crates to form barricades behind which the Word Bearers were ensconced. The cultists infested the area just outside, over a hundred of them laying down torrents of hard and energy rounds. The kinetic force of the fusillade was almost enough to force Geminon back and chips of ceramite scattered occasionally from the Aquila decorating his breastplate, but he was undaunted.

His storm bolter took a heavy toll on the cultists, mowing them down and sending them to hell where they belonged. His humours were well and truly up by the time he felt the impact of the first deuterium bolter round to find his armour. The Word Bearers had opened up at last.

'Give them a taste of Imperial Justice, Brother Helios,' said Geminon over the bead.

His brother moved forward, sending burning promethium arcing over the barricades.

'STORM THEM!'

Like the marching of mountains Geminon and his battle brothers thundered into the elevator, smashing aside the barricades and forcing the marines beyond back against the wall. Two of them fell to sustained bolter fire, another died in flames. Adrinar deprived another of his head and the sixth was rent in twain by Geminon's force-halberd. The last of the heretics foundered, his bolter batted away by Geminon's gauntlet, his chest-plate smashed with the blunt end of his Nemesis force weapon.

The Brother-Captain's fingers closed around the Astarte's throat and lifted him from his feet, smashing the traitor against the wall of the elevator. Geminon exerted his will upon the misbegotten soul, insinuating himself upon the marine's warped mind in a potent surge of psychic force.

'Listen to me, vile heretic, you will report to you masters above that the insurgency party has been destroyed!'

The traitor resisted, but untimately his untrained mind coulkd not resist the potency of Geminon's psychic persuasion and he complied, his mind blasted open and vulnerable to the psychic suggestion. When the heretic had done, Geminon tore the his head from his neck and let the body slump to the floor.

'It won't be long before they realise their error. Let us ensure that we are the ones to enlighten them!'

xxx

**0842 hours – Eastern Portico**

The storm intensified. The tide of translating daemonic entities ebbed and stopped after a few minutes, but the wave of warp creatures was already of such magnitude that it would have overwhelmed even the hardiest of mortals minds.

Frocar had been at Cadet-Commissar Vaughn's side when the daemon-thing had broken through his guard to slash away half of his face. He had barely been quick enough to dispatch the thing before it could finish him. Frocar had dropped his rifle to lift Vaughn up and carry him away from the fighting, so he hadn't seen the Orrax advance falter and fail, their battle-line had begun to collapse in on itself.

Vaughn's brave words had infused those around him into a fugal state of frothing madness that had driven them forward into the morass of daemonic filth. Scores of men had died in the maelstrom of unreality in only the first few minutes. Hundreds more would be driven insane over the course of the day. Before Frocar had even managed to drag Vaughn behind the barricades they had taken only moments before, Corgan's forces had been stalled and were beginning to be riven back beyond their hard-won. Frocar knew it would take a miracle for them to win through now.

Frocar's strength of will seemed to have calcified through the course of his recovery, but even he would never truly understand what happened next, even though he experienced it at first hand and was there every step of the way.

He dropped Vaughn's limp, groaning form and bellowed for a medic before diving back into the pell-mell of wide-eyed penitents. He found himself gripping the Holy Rudiment suspended from a rosary around his neck. It had been a gift from a warrior priest that had accompanied the liberation army. Frocar had spent a lot of time in the chapel during his convalescence and his faith had hardened as much as his will. With that holy icon gripped in his fist he found that his fear could no longer control him.

It had given him an idea. Perhaps it was madness. Perhaps it was merely hope. But it was worth trying.

He moved swiftly over to the nearest of a score of Chimeras drawn up before the barricades and took out his laspistol. Taking careful aim he blasted out the rivets holding a large Aquila in place on the tank's side armour. The Imperial eagle clattered to the ground. He took a length of tow-cable from the vehicle and a support prop that was about two metres long. With these ingredients he cobbled together a rudimentary Aquila standard. It was a little shorter than he would have liked and inexpertly constructed, but despite its ugliness he prayed that it would serve. As a final touch, he threaded the Holy Rudiment onto the top.

He headed back towards the front once more, bearing his makeshift standard aloft and bellowing the Litany of Hatred at the top of his lungs.

Men that had turned to run saw him and were filled with shame and courage in equal parts. They turned and took up the mantra with him. Further afield, others saw the standard held high and felt the unfamiliar surge of martial pride. The Litany spread through the ranks as more and more men took heart from its scathing damnation of all daemons, heretics and xenos. Before long, Frocar was leading a newborn charge, surging like waves upon a beach as the tide of daemons cringed back from him.

Corgan was suddenly at his side, rallying the staunchest of his men around the standard to take advantage of this unexpected turn of events. The Orrax Fifth Penitent moved forward once more with a passion, their guns taking a heavy toll on the daemonic hordes. Nothing could prevail before them.

In the days that followed the battle men would swear to the fact that the makeshift standard had begun to glow like a beacon of pure white light at the centre of the Legion's advance. Whether or not the Emperor was at their sides that day none will ever know for fact, but it is true that the standard which Frocar made that day was ordained as a Sacred Relic by the Ecclesiarchy in the days thereafter. It was always accounted the most treasured artefact owned by the Orrax regiments and the descendants of the Fifth have carried it to battle ever since.

But the toll that had been taken upon the Fifth up to that point was heavy indeed. They took the Portico and drove all vestiges of the enemy into the myriad catacombs of the lower levels, undertaking a guerilla style engagement as the enemy vanguard splintered to pieces.

In the narrow corridors of the Eastern Sub-Spire the Word Bearers took a heavy toll on the mortals that stood against them. Theirs had been a holy war ten thousand years old and this battle was no different. But the Fifth fought their zealotry with equal fanaticism and vitriol. Neither side would lie down in the face of the other and so only one outcome was possible; extinction of one faction or the other.

In the end, numbers told. The Eastern Portico and the Eastern Sub-Spire was taken. The Word Bearers lost almost a hundred Astartes while the Fifth lost fifteen hundred men to death. Most of the rest were wounded to some degree or another.

Indeed, the fighting of which I speak went on long after the conclusion of those events unfolding at the very heart of the complex. These events will now follow

xxx

**0859 hours – at the heart of the Administratum Complex**

The upper loading facility was smaller than the warehouse down in the sub-levels. Few items of any great size were ever brought up to the lofty stories that housed the upper echelons of the Imperial Administration. The Word Bearers' presence was minimal, the Brother-Captain's dupe had done its work and Darron breathed a deep sigh of relief as the last traitor Astartes was blown apart.

Andros Geminon bowed his head in deference to Inquisitor Armenio.

'Your leadership will be required during the final phase,' he intoned. 'Lead us well, old friend!'

Armenio nodded gravely, studying the one massive exit from the antechamber. He turned and gestured for his psykers.

'We must begin our Commune, watch over us while we prepare.'

Darron watched as a halo of corposant incandescent flickered around Armenio's head and spread along his arms as he reached out to hold hands with his sanctioned psykers. For an instant all three were engulfed in a flare of bright blue light that made Darron's small hairs stand on end.

As the triumvirate moved apart Darron got the distinct sensation that the three were moving as one. Something in the mannerisms they displayed suggested that Armenio was in overall control of all three bodies at once. He stifled a shudder as he looked into their eyes and saw nothing but the broiling of invisible energies.

He was starting to feel more than a little out of his depth.

As Armenio and his mind-slaves moved towards the exit he muttered some words of encouragement to his squad, but he was fairly sure that they hadn't seen anything yet!

* * *

**A/N - Only one chapter to go, hope you stick with me for the conclusion of this story. It's been a pleasure writing it up until I realised that I didn't know how to end it without it being a complete anticlimax - hopefully you won't be disappointed with what's to happen next. I'd like to say a quick thank you to Bien for his support (sorry this chapter is so short, but it had to be high-pace) and to Riddlesindisguise, who unwittingly helped me to arrive at a suitable conclusion to the story, and to everyone else that's given me feedback, both positive and negative throughout the course of the story's development. Anyway, I'll piss off now and leave you hanging on for the Final Solution for just a little longer.**


	19. Whispers in the Dark

**0905 hours - Tempellum Corpus Carsi**

A moment of uncertainty trembled through Vargus Hellborn as the sound of gunfire trickled toward him from the northern entrance to the Tempellum. Just as abruptly he could feel the discharge of massive psychic energies coming from that direction as well. He surged forward, binding the last of the slaves to the chain with his own hands and smashing aside three diminutive cultists in the process.

'Haste! We must complete the ritual!' he bellowed at the Arch-Castigator, the promise of eternal pain in his tones.

Vrael was at his side in the next instant.

'Take your men and throw these infidels back, warrior. I need time to complete the sigils and the incantations. GO!'

Vrael drew himself up, looming incomprehensibly tall and broad as he flexed the twinned lightning claws on his oversized gauntlets. He was a behemoth of epic proportions in his ancient suit of Terminator plate, festooned with macabre trophies of his millennia long existence.

The Champion had fought before the walls of the Imperial Palace on Terra, nigh on ten thousand years before. He had never been bested in single combat and did not understand the concept of defeat. He was a killing machine without compunction, without morales, without code. If anyone could turn this situation around, it was Vrael of the Crimsoned Claws.

He turned to face what forces remained to them. Two of his fellow Claws stood nearby, waiting for his commands. A squad of Word Bearers stood prepared as well, racking their bolters and muttering obscene prayers to themselves as they waited. Two score cultists stood around them, armed with lasguns, stubbers and autoguns, a collection of ancient and decrepit weapons more at home in a museum than on the battlefield.

The Marines would be enough and the cultists would provide an ample distraction if they could hold their nerve long enough.

He started bellowing his orders, thirsting for the combat he felt was imminent. He only prayed that the Blood God had provided a champion for him to face, someone worthy of his efforts.

He was not to be disappointed.

xxx

Darron drew his squad to the left as they crossed the threshold of the Tempellum. Surprised cultists sent a pathetically weak salvo of las-fire toward them as they scattered but none were hit as the squad ducked into the cover of a pile of defaced statues.

'What is that?' he asked Biggs, crouching beside him and gesturing up at the gargantuan black pillar and the chains with their macabre burden of sacrificial victims.

'You're asking me?' Biggs replied. 'I'm assuming that's what we're here to destroy, beyond that, I haven't the slightest inkling. To tell the truth I don't think I even want to know...'

Pullas dropped down beside them, pumping off a controlled salvo with his silenced autogun.

'What is that?' he asked, this time indicating a hulking figure making its way around the foot of the column. It was a Traitor Astartes, armoured as the Grey Knights were in bulky Terminator plate, with trophy racks mounted across his back and with huge lightning claws on his arms. His head was bear and resembled nothing less than a boulder, weathered by the passage of eons. A slight blue shimmer indicated that although he wore no helm, there was an energy field protecting this vulnerability.

Darron's horror deepened as he saw two more follow him into the open, flanked by no less than ten Word Bearers in power armour. Even Geminon seemed to hesitate upon seeing plasma weapons in their ranks. He knew that even his aegis suit might not be proof against such devastating weaponry.

'I think we're in deep dung, boys,' he understated the matter by a long mile.

Suddenly a shadow fell across him. Armenio loomed at his shoulder as his pet psykers sent lightning arcs out to greet the enemy.

'Your service to the Emperor may be achieved by less direct means, Decurion. Geminon and his battle brothers will take the direct route. You will come with me. We'll see what we can do about disrupting the ritual. Pray that we are in time to stop it!'

xxx

Septius went down quickly, his armour burned through by a blast of searing plasma. Geminon hoped he was only wounded. Adrinar took vengeance upon the weapon's bearer, although his psycannon bolts were primarily intended to harm daemonic entities, they still had slightly more punch than a regular deuterium round. The clawed behemoth, however, took everything they had to throw at him as he charged forward and laid into Garmos with a speed and agility that surprised even Geminon. His battle brother fell into three discernible pieces in as many heartbeats, even as  
Helios rushed to aid him.

Helios fared no better. His force-weapon sliced a chunk from the Traitor's thigh greaves before his own breast-plate was cloven through. He fell back gushing blood and mortally wounded. Even if his superhuman physiology managed to save him, he was out of the fight for now.

Adrinar was locked in combat with the other two Traitor Terminators, leaving Geminon face to face with the beast that had slain at least one of his blood-sworn brothers and possibly two.

'You have met your match, Grey Knight,' hissed the Traitor. 'I am Vrael of the Crimsoned Claw and you look upon your death!'

Geminon stiffened. He had heard that name before. The Crimsoned Claws had been the bane of the Imperium out in the Propheus Sector for centuries but nothing had been heard of them for at least six hundred years. It was believed they had fallen, but here was the living proof that they had not.

Vrael was not a Word Bearer. He had long renounced all ties to any Legion to become a legend among the Red Corsairs. He was believed to have been inducted into the World Eaters, originally, but that hardly mattered here and now. All Geminon cared about was that he had a fight on his hands worthy of his long and illustrious career.

'Bring it on, warp-slave!'

With a bestial, inhuman roar the combatants fell to it with over eleven thousand years of experience in warfare, albeit unevenly balanced between the two.

xxx

Armenio's retinue took the Word Bearers head on. Shalta Parnassus was in amongst them like a mouse amongst the cats, but a deadly mouse she was. She moved like a blur, wielding two short, deadly powered blades as her primary weapons, although the many spikes on her body-glove saw just as much use.

Levi Kursch kept his distance, blasting away with an archaic plasma weapon that sent bolts of coruscating energy burning through the marines.

The Twins added to the carnage with their potent powers of the mind while Armenio worked his way around the enemy by a more circuitous route, seeking the demagogue that had wrought the heretical arrangement that defiled the inner sanctum.

Darron went in the opposite direction with his men, avoiding the scrap that dominated the central floor of the nave to reach the chains where they bound the column to the Tempellum.

A few cultists tried to stop them and Toal was winged, but the resistance was pathetically minimal. They reached the first of the diabolical chains with ease, only to find the manikins hanging from it were all long dead, their orifices crawling with maggots and other unsavoury guests.

'Move on to the next one,' he said, 'We have to find some that are still living.'

'Look!' Collan cried in despair.

Darron followed his gesture to see the lightning clawed monster slice his way through two of the Grey Knights with such arrogant ease that it was difficult to believe what he was seeing. The bastard then fell to it with Brother-Captain Geminon and they saw that even he was grossly over-matched.

'Frak, what do we do?' Darron cried, unable to believe what he was seeing. Biggs grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him close.

'You have your orders, follow them through. I'll go and help Geminon!'

'But what can you do against that?'

It was too late, Biggs was already on his way.

xxx

Vrael's first thrust was a feint, designed to put Geminon off balance. It was well disguised but no match for the Grey Knight. Wielding his force-halberd like a quarterstaff he spent a little effort deflecting the Traitor's thrust while he bringing his full strength to bear on the business end of his own counter-strike.

The Corsair deflected it with his off-hand claw and surged forward, trying to close the distance and render the Grey Knight's weapon unwieldy. Again Geminon was prepared for this and side-stepped, smashing a gauntleted fist into the gap beneath Vrael's breastplate. It was never going to hurt the bastard, but it drove him back and allowed Geminon to go on the offensive once more.

He worked like a daemon, swinging and thrusting with his force-weapon, testing the traitor's prodigious defensive skills with the best he had to give. Not a single blow got through, he was frustrated at every turn.

The Corsair stepped back with a mocking sneer.

'Is that all you have, Grey Knight? If this is the best the False Emperor can throw at me I'll be spitting upon his corpse within the month...'

Geminon growled, considering his next move. Vrael disavowed him of his intent by pressing home his own assault.

He was excessively skilled. His claws seemed capable of being in four places at once, working independently of each other in a way that defied the laws of balance and harmony. It was the kind of offensive that would have seen any ordinary fighter slain within seconds, but the strength and speed of his blows were so bewildering that even the Grey Knight was barely able to counter effectively. A claw plunged into his shoulder and was withdrawn even as the other scored through the ceramite plating on his upper thigh. He had drawn first blood and damaged the auto-reactive systems in Geminon's left shoulder to boot. The Emperor's scion would be slower for it.

Vrael did not back off to gloat. Geminon hurled his entire strength behind his force-weapon, smashing the adamantium stave into Vrael's midriff with monstrous strength in an attempt to make room for himself. For his valiant efforts he felt Vrael's claws rake his sides, peeling away at his armour and drawing yet more blood. Those claws seemed capable of cutting through anything, only his halberd seemed proof against it.

Geminon did that which he had been resisting... he had no choice... he took a backward step.

Vrael pressed home his assault, his claws smashing against the haft of Geminon's weapon as he defended desperately. Sparks flew and the air hummed around them, becoming supercharged with static from the clash of their powered weapons.

The Traitor marine was relentless, silent in his ancient fury, but deadlier than a ten kiloton warhead. He was by far the greater warrior of the two. In contrast, Geminon felt something he had never experienced in his life before that day... he thought it might be despair.

Armenio must not fail. This monster would slay the Inquisitor with a mere flick of his wrist. If that was fated to happen, then Geminon knew he had to stay alive for as long as he could to ensure that at least the ritual could not be completed.

Suddenly, and in defiance of all that was holy, the haft of his weapon gave way to the furious assault, splintering into two pieces. Geminon lost his entire left forearm to the stroke and was staggered to his knees by the sheer force of the blow.

Breathing hard, Geminon looked up, waiting for the final stroke to fall, knowing in both his hearts that he had failed at the end.

He whispered a prayer for forgiveness as the claw rose to deliver the killing blow.

xxx

'God-Emperor!' Darron swore. 'Is that who I think it is?'

'Well, it's an Orrax uniform,' Toal gasped. His arm was in a sling, already stained with his blood, but at least he was walking and could wield the pistol Darron had given him. 'I don't recognise the face.'

'I'm pretty sure that's Hicks, he was one of Biggs' men. Cut him and the others down, any that are still alive. We'll hold off the stitch-faces while you do it.'

Toal went haltingly to work while Darron drew the others into defensive positions around him, popping off short controlled bursts of fire at any cultists that headed their way. He tried to spot Armenio but the gloom of the Tempellum defeated him. Even the lightning strikes of the Inquisitor's pet psykers seemed to have stopped. They may be dead, or otherwise engaged but Darron thanked the Emperor that they'd taken the Word Bearers with them. Whatever the situation, he decided he was doing what he could. He offered a quick prayer for deliverance, with Biggs in the forefront of his mind as he did so.

A filthy savage appeared at his side, grabbing up a decrepit autogun from the hands of a dead cultist and kneeling to deliver the Emperor's justice to the increasing numbers of cultists headed their way. The fellow was young, with a shock of pure white hair and eyes that spoke volumes of his pain.

'Well Throne be praised, it's Perri! Listen up boys,' he cried, suddenly jubilant. 'The Emperor, in all his divine glory, has seen fit to bring two of our lads back from the very brink of damnation. Are we gonna let that go to waste?'

'The hell we are, boss,' cried Pullas.

'Count me in, sarge,' Dror joined in, a look of determination on his young face that Darron had never seen before.

The others cried their assent and even Hicks had picked up a weapon in his palsied hands. He looked inordinately relieved even through his shell-shock.

Darron grinned.

'Give 'em hell, boys!'

xxx

'What is the purpose of this monstrosity, Hellborn?'

Armenio squared up to the massive Astartes sorceror, his anointed blade held in both hands before him, the shoulder-mounted psycannon primed and ready

The sorcerer didn't waste time on words. His incantation continued uninterrupted as he sent a blast of warp-energy smashing into the Inquisitor.

Armenion staggered back, his sword held limp in one hand, the other clamped against his forehead. Something evil swirled around his mind, blacking out everything but the most primeval urge to survive. The bastard had been waiting for him with this prepared for a show of hospitality.

The twins came to his rescue, distracting the sorcerer from delivering the deathblow. Their lightning arcs converged on the monster, illuminating him in stark contrast to the gloom surrounding them.

Vargus reared up, his voice gaining volume but losing clarity until it was little more than a scream. He charged down one of the twins, crushing her underfoot and delivering another blow to the Inquisitor through the empathic link he had been maintaining. The other twin, maddened by pain and loss, charged recklessly in to grapple with the sorcerer, but he was grossly over-matched. Vargus tore his arms off and kicked what remained into a pile of smashed pews.

Armenio took advantage of the distraction to level his sword and charge, the point aimed directly at the Traitor's hearts!

xxx

Vrael's claw never found its mark.

Solid rounds whickered from somewhere behind Geminon, impacting on the field protecting Vrael's unarmoured head. The field flashed blue with every strike, effectively rendering him blind. But this would not distract the bastard for long

Geminon hurled himself aside as the claw fell, cleaving through ancient floor-tiles instead of the Grey Knight's head. He staggered to his feet, hurling the blunt end of his weapon aside and plunging the pointed end deep into Vrael's side. Blood gushed, but only for a moment before it coagulated around the protuberance.

Vrael was unperturbed. He turned to face Geminon once more, bullets now spanging from his shoulder armour without visible effect.

'One way or another, the end result will be the same,' Vrael growled, his gimlet eyes narrowed with hatred, clouded with pain. The halberd was a holy relic of the Ordo Malleus, poisonous to any warp-trafficker. But Vrael was a Space Marine. It would not be enough to kill him.

With his bolter spent, Geminon had only one weapon left in his armoury.

He looked aside to see that Helios was trying to prop himself up, only metres away. Septius, his jaw muscles twitching with the pain of his extensive injuries, was crawling towards the combatants, a look of sheer determination in his eyes as he clawed at the floor. Adrinar, bless his soul, was still fighting the remaining Crimson Claw and too far distant to answer the Summons Geminon broadcast with his Will.

'What is that?' Vrael twitched, sensing something forming in the air around him.

'That?' Geminon smiled through his own throbbing pain, enjoying the Traitor's sudden discomfiture. 'That's just something we of the Grey Knights call the Holocaust!'

Suddenly the Crimsoned Claw was surrounded by a roiling sphere of coruscating warp energy. His armour began to peel away as the unnatural energies assaulted him.

Geminon knew that even this was probably not strong enough to slay the mighty Astartes. He used that part of his mind not engaged in maintaining the Holocaust to move over to retrieve poor Garmos' force-sword. With this in hand he returned, allowing the warp-fire to subside.

'You have slain one who was very dear to me.' Geminon grunted, addressing the blistered and bewildered warrior where he swayed, momentarily incapacitated. 'With his sword I will exact the Emperor's vengeance upon you, thrice-damned child of the warp!'

Geminon put what strength remained to him behind the swing of the might blade, cleaving Vrael's right arm from his body. With another great heave he parted the left at the elbow joint. Still the Traitor marine refused to drop.

'You will kneel to receive your doom, Vrael of the Crimsoned Claw,' he cried, smashing the flat of his blade into the back of his foes knee. The Terminator armoured fiend dropped heavily with a cry of rage, pain and frustration. Geminon reared up behind him, the massive sword held high, the point ready to plunge through the armour to separate Vrael's spine.

'In nominae Imperator, recipe ferrum!'

The blade struck true and Vrael of the Crimsoned Claw met with a cleaner death than he deserved.

xxx

Armenio's blade struck simultaneously, plunging in through Vargus Hellborn's breastplate as though it were paper. The Inquisitor staggered back, his mind still reeling with the residue of the spell Hellborn had planted there combined with the deaths of his psykers. He was only dimly aware that Hellborn had not yet fallen dead at his feet.

He fought for clarity as something bigger and much darker began to form from the gloom all around him. The darkness found form, disparate and elusive, hardly even form at all, but undeniably there!

'You are too late, Inquisitor. The Rite is complete. This world will die a much slower and far more painful death than any you may have wrought upon me and my followers. The Whisperer awakes!'

He was right. Armenio began to hear voices. Many voices all at once, soft and sibilant, originating from the the dancing shadows all around him. The nave of the ancient Tempellum was alive with something so dire and so evil that it might never be truly cleansed of the taint.

He felt an overwhelming sense of failure. His heart seemed to drop in his chest, his breathing became more laboured and a nausea settled in his belly. Whatever daemonic influence Vargus Hellborn had owed allegiance to, it was here in this room with them. They were all doomed!

'Wait, something is wrong,' Vargus whimpered, casting about him as though he mislaid something. 'It wasn't supposed to happen this way...' he turned on Armenio, the hilt of his sword protruding from his shattered chest. 'What have you done?'

Gunfire suddenly erupted on Hellborn's armour. Riddled as it was with hairline fractures from the blow of Armenio's sword it couldn't hold up to the salvo of sustained fire. Blood gouted from a hundred small punctures in the Astartes' body.

He fell to his knees at last, a sudden light of comprehension glimmering in his opalescent eyes as Darron and his team emerged from the coagulating shadows around him. Hicks and Perri shied away from the marine, scarred by their last encounter with him.

'You disrupted the ritual...' Hellborn gasped. 'It all makes sense now... By depriving the Black Pillar of souls you prevented it from having the power to contain the Whisperer, to amplify it across the continents.' Hellborn laughed, a long, gurgling laugh that flecked his jaundiced lips with his own dark blood.

'You succeeded, mighty Inquisitor, only insofar as you prevented me from sending this world spiralling down into darkness and destruction in one fell swoop... see how the shadows disperse?' He gestured around himself. The shadows did indeed seem to be flowing away through the small doorways along the walls and out through the main entrance.

'The Whisperer is vast and inscrutable. It will fester in the streets of this city and turn the hearts and minds of its people against you. If I have failed to ensure that all of Fered Roathi burns, at least I am content to know that this place will come down in flames around your ears.'

'Enough,' Armenio shouted, recovered enough to have some clarity of purpose once more. 'Enough of your lies. This thing may not be ended yet, but believe me, I will end it! Finish him!'

The ancient sorcerer was driven onto his back by the salvo of fire that ensued, his body so filled with hot lead that his blood steamed. Perri and Hicks took their vengeance upon the architect of their suffering, while the others did their duty to the Imperium.

Geminon staggered over to join the survivors, swaying on his mighty feet. Biggs was in tow while Adrinar attended to his wounded brethren.

'What was that thing, Inquisitor?' asked the Grey Knight.

'I don't know yet, my old friend. Let us not be distracted from the here and now. There is still work to be done here. We will see what is to be done about the rest later but I fear that our stay on Fered Roathi may be more prolonged than I intended.'

xxx

The repatriation of Fered Roathi IV was to take a further three years and a heavy-handed combination of martial law and Inquisitorial purging. As Vargus Hellborn had promised, much of the delta city had to be purged with the holy flames of the Inquisition as the mysterious entity known only as the Whisperer took control of the weak minded, stirred up the mutant and festered in the hearts of the heretic. Even before he was fully recovered from his ordeal in the Tempellum Corpus Carsi Armenio led a cadre of Ordo Hereticus Inquisitors in dealing with the tragedy. They put several hundred psychotic latent psykers to the sword as their talents were usurped by the maleficent daemon. Many lives were lost before the situation was brought under some semblance of control and the Whsiperer banished to the warp. Armenio found that he had his work cut out for him, but at least there were no further manifestations of the entity elsewhere on Fered Roathi IV.

Andros Geminon refused to leave Armenio's side during this time, even to have his arm reconstructed. His bothers Septius and Helios recovered from their horrific wounds as only the Astartes can. They mourned the loss of their brother Garmos, but his sacrifice had not been in vain.

Elsewhere, the Orrax Penitent Legions were pardoned to a man. There were less than two thousand able bodied men of sound mind remaining from the three original legions. Draven offered them the chance to continue in the Emperor's service, commissioning a new regiment from the ashes of the old. These he dubbed the 567th Orrax Grenadiers (being a combination of the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh legions) and granted them the same status afforded to other levied regiments of the Imperial Guard. Almost all of the survivors remained to take up that offer. Three months later they were reassigned to the fringes of the Segmentum Tempestus to combat the Tyranid hive fleet Gargantua. Their commanding officer was a highly decorated former-penitent who went by the name of Major Escabar Corgan.

The 567th was fated to win fame and infamy on the battlefields of the Segmentum. Their story is yet to be concluded.

* * *

_**A/N** - I hope that was a fitting conclusion to the sequence. Rest assured that the Orrax regiment has a lot of mileage left. You can read about more of their exploits in Better the Daemon You Know Part 2, which is still in progress. If you loved it, please leave a review, if you hated it, please leave a review, if you couldn't care less, don't bother..._

_Cheers!_


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